


Helpless

by celeryy



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, Mild Gore, Post Reichenbach, Rape/Non-con Elements, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-01
Updated: 2012-09-16
Packaged: 2017-11-08 22:51:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 15
Words: 35,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/448438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeryy/pseuds/celeryy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Dark version of "Spectrum". About a week post-Reichenbach. Everything basically goes to Hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Apocalypse

**Author's Note:**

> Notes from ff.net:  
> This is oh, so very dark. While I was writing "Spectrum" and trying to work out the direction of the story, I kept seeing it branch off in sometimes radically different directions. I originally wanted to publish this piece as the darker version of (the first chapter of) "Spectrum", in the same fic, (hence the title 'Spectrum') since the premise is very similar. Even the language echoes, because I wrote them more or less simultaneously.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoy reading (ehh...'enjoy' isn't really the right word), and if you react to it, check out "Spectrum" for comparison. Although, be warned that this one may throw the other in a slightly more disturbing light...
> 
> Warning for non-con situations and drug use. Yes, it's that kind of dark. Evil!Sherlock intrigues me, so I've used the drugs here to explore what could happen if he was in a desperate situation (like post-Reichenbach) and momentarily lost his moral compass.
> 
> Like "Spectrum", I wrote this with only pronouns...maybe I was subconsciously trying to distance myself...It's Sherlock and Molly, in case you can't tell. (I really hope you can tell...)
> 
> Not my characters. And for the record, they really don't deserve this. I'm such a jerk. :/

/

His eyes were bloodshot. Pupils fully-dilated. Breathing shallow. There was a noticeable nervous tremor in his hands.

"Did...did you...take something?" she whispered, extremely anxious, because she'd never seen him like this before.

"Not important."

"But - where did you even find -?"

"I _said_ ," he growled, " _Not important_." She was taken aback by the aggression in his voice.

"Are you alright? If you like, I could -"

" _Shut up_."

She shut her mouth quickly, eyes wide and frightened.

He stared at her with an unusual intensity, even for him, and there was an uncomfortably long silence which she didn't dare interrupt.

Then, he took a step forward. And another. Measured, deliberate steps. A shaking hand reached up towards her, and she felt his fingers brush her cheek. The contact made her skin burn. She stiffened.

"Wh...what are you doing?"

Her defensive body language and the apprehension in her voice seemed to catch him off guard. He frowned, glassy eyes searching her face as if looking for the punchline to a joke - one that he didn't find at all amusing.

"You know what I'm doing."

A fact.

_You know what I'm doing._

Oh, and she did.

She _did_.

She felt most of the blood drain from her face. Her heart started beating faster, though whether from fear or excitement she couldn't have said.

"Um..." For a moment, she was entirely at a loss. How was this happening? Why was he acting like this?

She took a good look at the tall, mysterious, and incredibly attractive man in front of her who apparently had acquired an urgent desire to fulfill one of her most desperate fantasies...and it felt wrong. She suddenly wanted to be far away.

"I don't think I feel comfortable..." she began, but at the expression on his face, the words died in her throat.

He kept advancing towards her, forcing her to walk backwards, until her back collided with the wall and she had nowhere to go. He loomed over her, uncomfortably close.

"I don't understand," he said, through gritted teeth. She could feel his breath. "This is something you've been _hoping_ for. _Isn't it_?" he seethed. "You've been _fantasizing_ about this for years." A tone of bitter mocking had crept into his voice. He took hold of one of her wrists and wrenched it up, pinning it against the wallpaper, near her shoulder. "Don't think I haven't _noticed_...every _desperate_ attempt to get my attention!"

"No - of-of course you have," she agreed hastily. "And...you're...you're right," she added, though it pained her to admit it out loud. "But -"

"Then, why - can't - you - _like it_?" he hissed savagely.

It took her a moment to work up the courage to speak again, and her voice trembled as she said, "I just...I'd rather not...Not like this..."

He stared at her, confused and angry. She realized, in a horrible pang, that he honestly _didn't get it_.

"P-please," she managed, blinking rapidly. She couldn't quite meet his eyes. "I don't...I'd really rather not -"

"NO!"

He shouted the word roughly, sounding for a moment half-crazed and almost fearful, and shoved her body into the wall.

" _I can't let you take this away from me as well_ ," he breathed.

_Ah, there's the rub..._

For one strange, luminous moment, she pitied him; the fact that everything in his world had been stolen from him so quickly; that this was all he had left -

this power over her.

Then he knotted his fingers into her hair. And it _hurt._ The pain tearing at her scalp snapped everything back into focus. She looked up to meet his dark, hungry eyes, and she was terrified.

Because staring back at her wasn't the man she knew. Instead, she saw a feral, drug-addled - the word sprang unbidden into her mind, and it was so cruelly ironic -

_psychopath_.

It was as if he could read her mind. An unnerving, toothy smile lit his face that made her blood freeze. She'd never seen an expression that was at once so vicious and so cold.

She couldn't help it - she panicked. She tried to twist away, but that only made it hurt more. With her free hand she tried to pry his fingers out of her hair, but his vice-like grip tightened ferociously. His fingernails were digging into her head. He was so strong.

She started to cry.

Eventually she remembered to try and kick, but he was already too close, and to stifle her protestations he pushed himself towards her aggressively, crushing her into the wall. Every part of her body was now pressed flush against him. Her ragged breaths were muffled slightly by his chest, which nearly smothered her breathing altogether. She squirmed feebly, sobbing into his shirt.

Her struggles only excited him further, feeling the thrill of power over her and the friction between their bodies. He was panting heavily with the combination of exertion, drug-induced mania, and arousal.

" _Shhhh_..."

She heard him hiss into her ear in a disturbingly placating tone. Then, the hand still entangled in her hair pulled her head back with a painful jerk, and he ran his tongue slowly over her jaw and down the length of her neck, making her shudder violently as her confused body experienced conflicting sensations: fear, repulsion, and a startling, treasonous rush of desire.

She felt him smile into her collarbone at the response he had caused. She whimpered softly, and a groan of pleasure grew in his throat. He moved his hips against hers sensually, almost teasingly - goading her body to betray her further.

"Please," she was able to choke out. "P-please don't. Oh, please - no - Stop, Sh - _Ooh_!"

Her tearstained pleading cut off in a shuddering gasp as he impatiently thrust his hand between her legs. Her thoughts all blurred out of focus and she felt her knees buckle as her body surrendered to him limply. The tears continued to stream silently down her face, making her vision hazy.

She could still make out his leering grin as he leaned down and placed a shockingly tender kiss on her lips.

When he spoke, his voice was so low and subdued she could barely hear it.

" _I said_...

_hush_."

And then...

she was drowning.

/


	2. The Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is sort of the Fallout Chapter - it switches POV quite a bit between Sherlock and Molly to show how they're both dealing. Obviously, this will entail buckets of angst. The very first section takes place immediately after the implied events of chapter one.
> 
> It was difficult to decide how to approach this part, due to the sensitivity of the subject matter, so I hope I've done a fair/believable portrayal. Most of all, I just tried to stay true to the characters.
> 
> I didn't want to let Sherlock off the hook too easily, since what he did was unacceptable no matter how you try to slant it. He's suffering quite a bit from his decision, undoubtedly. But don't worry - I do plan to have a rather more uplifting resolution. Y'know - eventually... :)
> 
> Chapter warning for implied non-con (though I do hope you saw that coming...)
> 
> [Insert Obligatory Disclaimer Here]

/

Sherlock stumbled into the hallway, and the bright light blinded him for a moment, searing straight through his eyes and into his brain. Scalding him.

He was still panting heavily.

And still shaking.

He blinked a few times, trying to make the pain from the light go away.

Red. White. Red. White.

There was a noise in his head, like a high-pitched buzz, which he was vaguely aware of but couldn't even try to analyze because of the awful throbbing.

He lifted his hands to his face, finding comfort for a moment in the blackness. But then he made the mistake of inhaling. With the rush of air, the realization hit him that he was holding onto his shirt, and that the fabric was pressed against his nose, and that it smelled like _her_.

Smell triggers memory. It happened in an instantaneous flash: For a moment, he was back in the room, with his hands in her hair, and she was shuddering and panting beneath him, and crying, too, but saying not a word, nothing at all...

He gasped, and snapped his eyes open again, and the light blinded him again, and his head was reeling, reeling, terribly...

He thought he was going to be sick. He sank to his knees and doubled over, rocking back and forth, but nothing came up, not even bile.

He collapsed against the wall and tried to catch his breath. He looked down at the wrinkled, damp shirt in his hands. The fabric was swimming before his eyes, and he squinted hard, trying to focus.

The memory of the scent was still burning in his nose. It was sweet. And salty.

Sweat, and tears.

Her tears.

For the first time in his life, he didn't want to think.

Luckily his thoughts were, at the moment, still moving too quickly and chaotically to be coherent. He was afraid of what would happen when they slowed down.

He let his head fall back, hoping to drift into a peaceful stupor.

The buzzing noise was still in his brain. Only now it sounded like screaming.

Someone...was screaming.

Who was screaming?

Not her. She hadn't made a sound.

.

.

When Sherlock finally did slip into oblivion, he found no peace at all.

/

There were no marks.

Not even a bruise around her wrist or a scratch from where his teeth had raked over her skin.

Her head was sore, from where his fingernails had dug into her scalp, but no one could see that, and in any case, within three or four days it had healed up well.

She wondered whether she should feel lucky.

How she actually felt was hollow. And confused. And guilty for feeling confused.

Mostly hollow.

He was...entirely despondent. He wouldn't say a word to her; wouldn't even acknowledge her presence when they were in the same room. But that didn't happen often, as she was too shell-shocked and frightened and mortified to even look at him without wincing.

He showed no indication of feeling sorry. (Or, to be fair, of feeling anything at all.) She did notice, though, that he hadn't tried shooting up again. She wondered if that meant he regretted it.

He was still living in her flat. She didn't know why. _He_ didn't know why. It would have been dangerous to leave, of course, and he had nowhere to go...but that wasn't it. He seemed to have lost the will to move. For the most-part he hid in the guest room, or he'd lay on her couch and stare at the ceiling with dead eyes. She couldn't yet work up the nerve to demand him to leave; she tried her best to pretend he wasn't there.

/

Four days after it happened, she found herself walking past him in the hallway, and their eyes met accidentally, making her stomach lurch. They both held the gaze for a moment longer than necessary. Suddenly, she spoke.

" _He_ never did anything to me, you know,"

They both knew who she was referring to.

The sound of her own voice surprised her - it was soft, but steady.

"He could have, too," she told him, "if he'd felt like it. But he didn't."

He stared at her, looking stricken. She saw a muscle tense in his jaw, and for a second she thought he was going to lunge at her, but before she could do anything he turned on his heel and strode quickly back the way he'd come.

Later that night, she heard something. An agonized choking, retching noise coming from the bathroom. She crept out of her room to check, as silently as possible. The door had cracked open just an inch, and she hesitated, heart pounding, before sneaking a short glance.

He was sitting inside on the tiled floor, hunched over the toilet. His whole body shaking. She recoiled in shock. Her mind and her heart raced, in a chaotic whirlwind of bewilderment and terror and spite and pity.

She stayed there for three long minutes, hidden in the dark hallway with her back to the wall, and listened to him vomit and shudder and sob quietly.

/

Two days after that she found him sitting on her living room floor, staring at the empty television screen.

A thought occurred to her.

"Sherlock?"

He jerked his head towards her a fraction of an inch, startled at being addressed directly.

She took a breath to steady herself. Her instincts were screaming at her to run, to hide, but she pressed on. This was something she had to know.

"How...how much do you remember?"

He could have lied.

He could have told her that he'd blacked out and that the drugs had deleted everything. That he'd been so high he wasn't in control of his own body. But deception, lately, had already caused so much pain. He wanted nothing more to do with it.

He paused, before answering truthfully:

"Everything."

"Oh..." she breathed faintly. It wasn't the answer she'd been hoping for.

He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, anything, to stop her from looking at him like that.

But all he could hear was

... _monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster, monster.._.

Somehow he had no choice but to keep explaining - to keep twisting the knife. He continued hoarsely, and it was almost against his will, as though the words were being wrenched out of him.

"I was..." he paused for a moment, searching. "... _affected_. But -" and here he closed his eyes. It was visibly paining him; each syllable was like scaling a cliff. "...but still... _culpable..._ for my - actions."

When he looked up at her face, gazing at her head-on for the first time in nearly a week, his pale eyes were resolute and completely devoid of hope.

"And I know that, this time...I can't ask for your forgiveness."

Her eyes filled with tears, because she wished she could tell him that it wasn't true, and then she ran to her room and locked the door and cried herself to sleep.


	3. Good Intentions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here goes. This is a JOHN CHAPTER. *confetti* The first of two, in fact. *more confetti*
> 
> Because if there's anything Helpless has been lacking, it's ~angst~, for Pete's sake, so here ya' go! Take a few more bucketfuls!
> 
> Chapter Warnings: relatively light, actually. several hints at dark subject matter.
> 
> Now enjoy the Watson! [Who doesn't belong to me, btw. None of them do, and don't you forget it!]

/

John was...not good. More than just a 'bit,' as well. In fact, he didn't think he'd ever felt more 'Not Good' in his whole life, and that was including the hellish month he'd spent lying in a hospital bed with a bullet hole in his shoulder and phantom pains in his leg and a nasty case of pneumonia, sensing that Death was near and wondering if the guy couldn't at least be bothered to hurry up a bit.

For the last two weeks, he'd felt a bit like his insides had collapsed...or like they'd been forcibly siphoned out through a gaping hole in his chest.

He was empty.

If he didn't keep his head up and his shoulders stiff and his gait sharp, he thought his whole body would probably implode in on itself, and as impressive a feat as that may be, he felt somehow that if he allowed himself to fall down now, he might never get back up.

It was a struggle, though. Mrs. Hudson and Mike Stamford and even Harry once or twice stopped in to check up on him, with worry etched onto their faces in heavy lines, and though he didn't say much to them he found himself secretly grateful for the company. He could handle the worry, and even the sympathy. It was better than being alone, with nothing to keep him from retreating into his head, because that was a dangerous place to be at a time like this. He could feel dark thoughts festering in the furthest recesses of his mind, and for the sake of self-preservation they needed to stay there. If he had too much time to mull things over properly, they might start to work their way forward. And he might start to remember the loaded handgun which was still tucked away in the back of the dresser drawer next to his bed.

This was the only reason he'd agreed to pay a visit to Bart's that afternoon to meet Mike. He really wished he could avoid the place, but Mike had insisted, and John figured it would be best to just suck it up and try to present at least a passing semblance of sanity, for his friend's sake if not his own.

As it turned out, Mike had called him in to try and offer him a job, seeing as his flatmate and main source of income had been unexpectedly...cut off.

"Listen, I'm only trying to help you be practical. I know you might need some time. Just think about it," he'd said.

John had nodded in a noncommittal fashion and excused himself without saying goodbye. He couldn't help feeling a bit angry at Mike, for making him come back here so soon after the accident - for making him walk past that spot on the sidewalk where the dried blood still hadn't been washed thoroughly out of the cracks in the concrete...

A sudden weakness overtook him, and he had to stop in the hallway. He leaned heavily against the wall and passed a hand over his eyes, trying to master his breathing, and hoping that his distress wouldn't attract any attention from two nurses who were coming from the opposite direction. Mercifully, they hurried past and didn't even glance up from their clipboards.

He had to do something. If he couldn't get these bloodstained memories out of his head, he'd go mad.

He glanced behind him for a second at the nurses' retreating forms. The shorter one had her long hair in a ponytail. From behind she looked like Molly Hooper.

Molly. That's right, she was still working here.

He'd heard that she'd done Sherlock's autopsy herself. He thought of Sherlock lying on one of the cold metal tables in the morgue and shuddered. He hadn't seen Molly since before the incident. He wondered how hard she'd taken the news. If she thought the rumors about him were true. She'd been sweet on him, after all.

The thought that another person in the vicinity might be sharing some of his misery was a small comfort. He wondered if he ought to go and check on her. It might help. For both of them. Because taking care of people was just something he did, so it might take his mind off of his own pain if he could focus on helping someone else with theirs.

If distraction had worked for Sherlock, then why not for him?

So somehow, he inexplicably found his feet steering him towards the mortuary.

/

He came in quietly in case she was working, and found her stacking papers on the far side of the lab. Her back was turned to him.

"Molly?"

He was shocked when she yelped and nearly jumped out of her skin. The papers went flying.

"Oh! John - it's you!..."

John was completely taken aback by her reaction.

"Molly, are you-?"

"No - no, I'm fine!" she said immediately, interrupting his line of questioning. "No - Sorry - really, it's - it's nothing. All fine here!" and she laughed, rather hysterically. John watched with increasing alarm as her shoulders began to shake, and her eyes welled up with tears.

"Molly!..."

He went to her, and placed a comforting hand on her arm. When he did so, he felt her flinch, almost imperceptibly - someone less observant might not have noticed, but his trained doctor's instincts set off alarm bells in the back of his mind.

He looked around at the scattered papers on the floor.

"Here, let me help."

"Oh, you don't have to..." she trailed off as he knelt and began sweeping them up. "um...thanks..."

When the paper were re-stacked and placed neatly back on the counter-top, John turned to her, brow furrowed in concern.

"Is everything alright?" he asked seriously.

Her eyes darted to the floor.

"I'm sorry...It's - it's just...silly...um..." she glanced back at him, "you see - my cat, um, Toby died, just yesterday." she invented wildly.

John blinked in surprise.

"Oh..."

He recovered himself.

"Oh - I'm sorry. Um..."

"It was a bit sudden," she explained. "Brain hemorrhage - I had to put him down." She sighed helplessly, and her voice grew choked. "And...just on top of - everything else, with _Sherlock_ -" his name seemed to affect her somehow; she shook when she said it, and then looked at John with wide eyes "Oh, John, I'm so sorry...It's just - I can't...it's just been..." she drew a shaky breath, and it was far too easy to let the tears start falling in earnest.

"I'm really sorry, about Toby," John said. He pointedly ignored her offer of sympathy, despite the pang he'd felt in his chest when she'd said Sherlock's name.

For a moment, Molly thought he'd bought the fake story. But then, as he looked directly at her, she could tell that he knew that something... _something_ was off. That, behind the grief, there was a fear which hadn't yet been accounted for by her explanation.

"Listen..." he started, and she was a bit scared of what he would say next.

"If...you want to talk about it," he said, picking his words carefully, "you can let me know. Just tell me if...if you need anything. You can ring me."

Even though his gaze showed nothing but caring and concern, the way his blue eyes searched her face still gave her a horrible feeling of deja vu. She swallowed.

He reached out again - more slowly, this time - and rubbed the side of her arm gently.

"Okay?"

She nodded. She didn't trust herself to speak.

He pulled his mouth into a soft smile, but it didn't reach his eyes; those remained sad and distant.

"Take care, alright?"

"You, too..." she whispered after him.


	4. The Wrong Idea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part II of the John and Molly encounters!
> 
> Chapter Warnings: reference to non-con, some language
> 
> Nooottt mmiiiiinnneeeeeee...

/

The second time he found her...

Molly was in the Tesco's car park, having just finished the shopping, and presently trying her best to forget the whole experience.

_Whose idea was it anyways to stack the displays in all those precarious pyramid arrangements? It's_ _like_...Jenga _, or something -_ _they're just_ asking _for trouble!_

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, but the effect wasn't nearly as calming as it ought to have been.

Why couldn't _one little thing_ go right for her today? Or, for that matter, in her whole sodding mess of a _life_?

As if 'cleanup in aisle eleven' hadn't been mortifying enough, then the bloody chip n pin machine had decided to decline her card, since she'd lately been neglecting to check the balance, and everyone behind her had huffed rudely while she hunted through her purse for cash.

It was a close thing - she had nearly started to cry, just from the sheer frustration, right there in the checkout queue, and she'd ended up leaving in a huff with only two bags, though she'd payed for three...

She'd just finished unloading everything into her car when her phone rang. It was work. She leaned heavily next to the open driver's seat door and assured Bart's that yes, of course she could come in an hour early for her shift...No trouble at all...

Not a second after she hung up, she heard someone call her name -

"Molly!"

Her head snapped up towards the voice. It was him again.

"John! Hi..."

"Alright, there?"

"Lovely, just bloody _lovely_ ," she sighed. "They want me to come to work an hour early..."

"Oh, God that's annoying."

_Yeah..._ " _annoying_ "...

John took a closer look at her face.

"You sure you're up for it?" he asked worriedly. "You're looking a bit peaky."

"I'm fine, honest." She gave him a halfhearted smile, silently wanting nothing more than to just drive home and sleep for a few hours. Then she began rummaging through her handbag again.

_Where on_ Earth _did my keys get to? I had them literally_ two minutes _ago and-_

"Molly?..."

"Yes?"

"Did you get a new cat?"

"Oh," she blinked distractedly. Why was he asking her about cats? "Um, no. No, I think I'm going to wait a while. I feel like it would be a bit much right now to get a new pet."

"Oh," said John. He shifted his feet and raised his eyebrows.

"I'd only asked, because... _that_ is an awful lot of cat kibble to eat all by yourself."

He nodded towards the open car door, and she turned in horror to look at the bag, which, sure enough, was sitting in plain sight on the passenger seat. She'd completely forgotten about it. And apparently John had picked up some of Sherlock's observation skills.

Oh, _bollucks_.

This wasn't going to end well.

" _So_."

He fixed her with an expectant stare, clearly asking for an explanation.

"John, listen..." she began.

"Molly, I'm really worried about you. _What's_ going on?"

She couldn't tell him. He _absolutely_ could not know. It would break his heart twice over.

She hated it. It was hard enough keeping the one secret from him -

_Oh, remember how Sherlock committed suicide the other week? Just so you know, he actually faked it. You were duped, but don't worry, it was all for your protection..._

But now there was also...

_Oh, and by the way, he hasn't been dealing with things so well - last week he overdosed on drugs and_ raped _me_...

She pursed her lips, fighting back tears.

"I don't want to talk about it."

He frowned at her, clearly not satisfied but not wishing to pry. She could see him thinking, narrowing down the options based on the data at hand. It was a look she'd seen a thousand times on Sherlock.

Suddenly his eyes narrowed.

"Did...something...happen?" he asked cautiously.

She froze.

"How do you mean?"

"You jumped three feet in the air last week when I startled you in the morgue. Was it..." He lowered his voice. "Molly, did you get attacked?"

"What? _No_! I - I didn't get _mugged_ , or something like that," she evaded, trying to sound incredulous.

John wasn't having it.

He made a silent decision, and then fixed her with a hard stare.

"No...It was something worse, wasn't it?"

This was another interrogation technique he'd picked up from Sherlock: Ask a leading question on purpose - and though he didn't know whether such a thing was actually the case, based on her reaction it was likely he'd be able to tell one way or the other.

He hated having to use it on her. But, unless he was mistaken, something was seriously wrong, and if she wasn't willing to tell him what, he had no choice.

That wasn't all…Caring for her happened to also be about the only thing he still had going for him at the moment. _He_ needed him to help her as much as she did.

Molly gaped at him.

_It sounded like..._

For one panicked second she wondered if he'd somehow found out already, and that hesitation - that tiny moment of speechless doubt told him all he needed to know.

She realized her mistake right away. But the damage was done.

John's face paled in horror after her fearful expression confirmed his implications. She saw his eyes flash. His normally composed expression turned suddenly deadly.

"Who did it?" he asked her, point blank.

"John -" she tried to head him off, but he wouldn't let her.

"Where's the sick bastard that tried to hurt you? Let me sort him out."

_Oh no...No, no! This is all wrong -_

"John, please don't say that! He's not a bad person. Y-you don't -"

"I think ' _he'_ _is_ , Molly. Seems pretty _goddamn_ clear to me -"

"No, listen, it's more complicated than that..." she tried to tell him.

"It's _not._ Molly, it _doesn't_ _matter_. I don't care _who_ he is! Get rid of him and don't ever let him near you again."

The awful thing was, she knew this was sound advice.

And in any other case, she could have afforded to listen.

"If you can't, I'll do it for you," John said darkly. He was completely serious.

" _No_!" She shouted, and he looked at her in surprise. Lashing out in defense was her only remaining option. She drew herself up, trying to look more sure of herself than she really was.

"I'm sorry, but my personal life is _none of your business,_ John! I happen to be perfectly fine right now, thank you, so _please_ stop prying!"

She was both relieved and ashamed to see that the counter-attack had struck a nerve. John crossed his arms and sighed, but didn't make any more threats. Instead he asked,

"Really, ' _perfectly fine_ '? Those are the precise words you'd use?"

_Oh,_ God… _Can we not go there,_ please _?…_

"I..." she swallowed back tears. " _John_..."

Now it was his turn to look chagrined.

"God, I'm sorry," he said, sighing wearily. "That was low of me. I know you miss him too..."

Molly couldn't say anything, so she didn't try. She just waited for him to say something.

"Fine then...I'll stop, _prying_ into your life," he told her after a long pause. "You're right - it's none of my business."

He stuffed his hands into his pockets and started to walk away, but after a few paces he hesitated and turned back to her.

"If you ever want to change that, though, do give me a ring. I could _help_ , Molly."

_I_ really _don't think you could_...she thought miserably to his retreating form.


	5. Running in Circles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit of a transition - I ultimately decided to split off the scene at the end suspense and to maintain a relatively consistent chapter length. It'll really start to pick up in the next update!
> 
> Ohhh, wow. There's a lot of drama on the way. Seriously - it gets intense.
> 
> I got stuck for quite a while on the section immediately following this one, and have only just been able to work it out. I literally wrote all day. The problem was that I had Point A and Point B written, but the scene in the middle was extremely convoluted and specific - the details and dynamics had to be just so. It took a lot of trial and error to get it to work, and some of that tied back to this chapter, so I didn't want to post it until I knew I wouldn't have to change anything.
> 
> Anywho, Chapter Warnings here: again, not many, just the usual; references to non-con/dark subject matter.  
> But they will come later. Boy, do they.
> 
> Okay - I'll stop teasing! Read on!
> 
> [Oh yeah, and also, not mine.]

/

It ate away at him from the inside. The _boredom_. It was like this every time, only now so much worse, because there was no way to make it stop. It drove him _mad_ , to be stuck inside his own head with that ravenous, relentless machine that constantly needed to be deducing, deciphering - that if it couldn't would keep charging on anyways and began to claw at the inside of his skull, tossing around useless pictures and words and digging into the recesses of his memory clawing up questions and pain and more more pictures and words until everything began to tear through in his mind like a hurricane, blinding him from the inside, until he couldn't even _see_ because everything was threatening to come spilling out from behind his eyes and oh _God_ he needed a cigarette, just one, or something stronger - yes, that would be perfect...

But he _can't_ , he CAN'T. Dangerously difficult. Infinitely impractical. Utterly unforgivable.

Up until recently, he'd have sworn up and down that _boredom_ was the most miserable, agonizing state of existence in which one could possibly find his or herself, but that was before the _mistake_. That act out of despair and frustration which had cost him the little humanity he'd believed he had, because now he didn't see how he could possibly be anything other than an irredeemable monster. Despite whatever John had thought, it had always been a secret comfort to him to know that, deep down, he actually _did_ have a soul (or something resembling an inherent compass), but now, even _that_ was thrown into doubt. He didn't know who he was - _what_ he was - anymore, and on top of the maddening, deranging _boredom_ , this self-doubt was more than he could handle, and he just wanted to die die die _die_ and why the _hell_ didn't his brain have an 'off' switch because he just wanted everything to _please_ just

STOP.

But no such luck...

Finally, the idea came to him, and it was like a raft he could cling to, a single redeeming thought. That same night he grabbed his jacket and left without a word. She didn't see him go, and he didn't care if it was risky, because whatever was out there couldn't possibly be worse than the torture he was already enduring from his own brain. And besides, with what he was planning to do it would hardly matter anyways.

/

It had been almost four weeks. She tried not to dwell on it...Remembering was painful.  
But despite her best efforts Molly still couldn't stop thinking about Sherlock and trying to rationalize what had happened.

She didn't _want_ to blame him. She didn't want it to be his fault. Even if he did, evidently.

When she closed her eyes she could see him again, drugged out of his mind, advancing towards her like she was the one thing in the world he could still see clearly.

He'd been high - dangerously so, it was obvious - and angry, and scared, and...and...not himself. That was the key, surely? He clearly hadn't been acting in his right mind.  
She probably ought to be cursing him. He'd told her himself that he _hadn't_ blacked out - that he'd acted out of free will.  
But she couldn't find it in herself to condemn him. It wasn't in her nature.

People make mistakes.  
They make horrible, cruel mistakes, and you keep on living anyways.  
He even seemed truly, deeply sorry. And if that wasn't a miracle, she didn't know what was...

Try as she might, she couldn't stop believing in him.

Eventually, she worked up the nerve to tell him so. It took several days. Hours of agonizing internal arguments. One afternoon she walked to the guest room and pushed the door open and steeled herself for what she was about to say.

But he wasn't there.

/

After being cooped up for so long, Sherlock had nearly forgotten how overwhelming it could be to walk through a crowded city. Faces and pictures flashed around him, with transient snippets of conversation tying some things together and raising just as many questions. He peered momentarily through thousands of windows, catching brief glimpses into the mundane lives of strangers.

Yellow jacket - purchased secondhand, disliked by previous owner, at least five years old...

"Mummy, I want _that_ one!..."

Full-time RN on call this week, widowed seven-plus years, fake pearl earrings...

" - and I sent a memo so they'd know to check the reports about the -"

Recent haircut, anxiety about a promotion, late for a meeting...

"Hey, Cecilia, sweetheart, why don't you come and crash at my place after -"

Rented a flat in town, brazen posture, obvious proposition...

"- but did you check in the cupboard? I put it on the second shelf behind -"

Compulsive shopping habit, borrowed husband's credit card without his knowledge...

" _God_ yes, I'm starving -"

The familiar intonation made Sherlock's head whip around, but it was just some average Joe - a civil engineer, on holiday from Winchester, owned two cats - out for a pint with a group of friends.  
He ground his teeth and picked up his walking pace, frustrated that he'd let himself get momentarily distracted.

As the lamps began to flicker on to diffuse the lengthening dusk shadows, the streets gradually cleared until they were all but silent, and Sherlock slowed to a leisurely stroll. He'd ended up inadvertently circling back to the edge of Molly's neighborhood; her house was probably less than a ten-minute's walk from here...  
Sherlock paused, frowning, and then he cut off to the left, following a side street away from the cheery residential lights.

He was searching for something. A means to an end. He didn't know what it would be, precisely, but he had a knack for following his intuition.

In this case, his intuition led him towards the outskirts of downtown - the side-street eventually opened onto a part of the city which would have felt perfectly nondescript in broad daylight, but which at night became one of those places the tourists are warned to avoid. There were discarded newspapers and broken beer bottles in the gutter, and one of the scattered street-lamps kept flickering out intermittently. He couldn't see anyone else walking alone - there were a few people traveling in noisy groups, most of them heading in or out of the building across the street, from which he could hear drunken laughter and the pounding bass beat of club music. A neon glow a few blocks to the right caught his eye, which, upon closer inspection, turned out to be a sign hanging in the window of a pub.

Sherlock hesitated in the shadows for a minute. Then he went inside and sat down unnoticed in a corner. He didn't order anything, and he kept his eyes trained on the door.

After about an hour, he found what he'd been looking for.

/

/

/

Meanwhile at 221B, John sat on the edge of his bed, with his head in his hands. He was still mulling over the last conversation he'd had with Molly; her terrified eyes and the instability in her voice. The expression on her face when he'd finally drawn out the truth.

Something horrible had happened - sexual assault, probably - and apparently by someone she'd dated, or was in a relationship with. A relationship that she was stubbornly refusing to break off.

She was in trouble, and she needed someone to help. She needed _him_.

He'd told her would stay out of it. But now that he _knew_ , there was no way he couldn't act. She could be in real danger, after all.

John dropped back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling, his mind made up.

He was _not_ going to let this go.


	6. The Final Solution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now get ready, because here. we. go.
> 
> First of all...hooray for the longest-yet chapter!  
> My god, after slugging through this I now have a whole new respect for Moff-Gat (& the other writers) for coming up with all of Sherlock's crazy deductions. That was the scene that held me up the most while I was writing this part, because the one I wanted had to be so specific in what it accomplished. I really hope I've done a decent job with it here, and I'd like to know if it sounds coherent/believable/realistic for Sherlock (because his version of 'realistic' is a bit different from everyone else's :D).
> 
> WARNINGS: Alcohol/drunkenness. Dark subject matter. Big warning for lewd/profane language in this chapter. Words beginning with 's' and 'w' and 'f' are thrown around, among others. It made it a bit uncomfortable to write, to be honest, and I actually made a minor alteration to part of the ending to avoid a particularly awful one. That said, I didn't add anything I thought was gratuitous. It's all about the art!
> 
> On a side note, the investigation of British slang was admittedly rather interesting. Huge thanks to PurpleYin from ff.net in this and the next chapter for the help!
> 
> Oh yeah, and still not mine. That part...isn't really gonna change.

/

It had captured Sherlock's interest immediately when a rowdy-looking group walked in and sat down at a booth in the far corner. They were laughing and roughhousing and talking in loud voices, so that even from the other end of the room Sherlock could catch various lewd comments and uttered profanities. He noticed several details which intrigued him - in particular, one of the men was almost certainly carrying a small object inside an inner pocket of his jacket. He began to pay closer attention to that one. The man was about Sherlock's height, but with a stronger build. Late twenties. He had close-cropped sandy hair - a bit like John's, Sherlock realized, but he quickly wiped the thought from his mind.

He kept observing all five of them, keeping an especially close eye on the man with the sandy hair. Yes, he definitely had something in the hidden pocket, based on the way he checked it briefly before tossing the coat over the back of a chair. Sherlock had also noticed several other things which looked promising, and as he kept watching he could see his suspicions being confirmed...

First: the man had sent a text when he'd first walked in, and now he kept checking his phone, every few minutes at least, when he thought no one was looking. Anxious for a reply. This wasn't an innocent family matter; the expression on his face read clearly of suspicion, rather than selfless concern. So, a personal trouble; most likely a romantic relationship - girlfriend. And foul play suspected as well; why else would he try to hide it? That it was his girlfriend and not his wife was clear from the lack of either a wedding band or a tan mark from an absent one. This man had never been married, and quite honestly he didn't seem the type. So, he was paranoid about his significant other - probably because he suspected her of cheating - and he didn't want his friends to know.

Second, there was tattoo on his upper arm in black ink. Initials: CC. It had been done recently. A script font. Embellished. The girlfriend's initials? Most likely. That ought to have been enough, but something about it kept nagging him. Sherlock wracked his mind, trying to see if he could make the connection. Words ran through his head.

_Cubic centimeters. Carbon copy..._

No, no it definitely stood for a name. Catherine? Caroline? Carly?

He muttered it out loud to himself softly.

"C. C. See-see...Ci-ci..."

Suddenly the answer occurred to him.

" _Hey, Cecelia, sweetheart,_ _why don't you come and crash at my place after -"_

He experienced an illuminating flash of insight. Cecelia... _CC_. Not initials - a _nickname_. The picture flashed vividly before his eyes: a man and a woman standing outside a restaurant (called the Victoria, he remembered). He'd walked right past them. He closed his eyes to better recall the scene. Yes, the woman had been wearing a waitress's uniform, along with a fancy name-tag which bore the engraved letter "V." The man she was with was clearly not a relative, based on his suggestive comment and the way he'd been toying with her skirt, until she'd knocked his hand away. _Feeling guilty_.

Sherlock smiled grimly when he was sure:

 _cheating girlfriend_.

The man outside the Victoria Restaurant hadn't been her boyfriend. Her boyfriend was right here in this pub, trying to figure out whether or not she was doing exactly what Sherlock had seen her doing.

It was a stretch, he knew, but the pieces fit. And with this powerful detail the rest of his plan fell into place.

He had all the right weapons. He was ready to pick a fight.

And lose.

That was the goal - what he'd come here to do.

 _The 'final solution.'_ How ironic.

Half an hour later the unlucky cuckold in question got up and headed towards the bar, probably to get more food or another round of drinks. Sherlock knew that this was his chance to act. The split-second decision could not be made lightly, because the success of his scheme depended on it and he may have been wrong in his assumptions. He could walk back outside and hope to get mugged, of course, but the payoff wouldn't be nearly as satisfying. This, at least, held an element of challenge.

He decided to go for it.

Sherlock stood abruptly and picked up an unattended mug from a nearby table, not really caring who it belonged to. He took a single swig and winced mildly at the cheap quality. He'd never been a fan of beer.

It took him about half a second to get into character. His whole demeanor shifted, purposeful stride changing to a tipsy swagger. He approached the bar landed heavily on the stool next to the man, "accidentally" elbowing him in the arm.

"Oy, watch it, shithead," the man growled rudely.

"Sorry, mate..."

He'd altered his accent rather heavily, knowing that the slurring would probably hide any suspicious mistakes. He wouldn't have been able to pull off lower-middle-class if he'd been wearing his usual clothes, but on the day after the fall Molly had stopped by a second-hand shop for him and picked up things like jogging bottoms, several t-shirts, bluejeans, and a worn but comfortable beige jacket (as his Belstaff coat had been stained with blood). He was dressed casually and probably looked a bit scruffy as well, seeing as he'd barely moved from the couch for about a week. He hadn't even showered or shaved for almost three days. For this, that fact would actually be to his advantage.

Right then the other man's phone lit up, and he hastily went to check it. The name of the contact was only available for a split second: Cecelia. Same as the tattoo, and as the waitress outside the Victoria Restaurant. Relief washed over him. He'd been right.

She'd him sent a text back, that just said -

[cant - sorry! girls night xoxo]

Sherlock pretended not to notice any of this. The more thickheaded he came across, the better. Instead he squinted at the stranger rather deliberately.

"Hang on..." he drawled, "do I know you?" The man looked down at him in annoyance. He clearly didn't want to be having this conversation.

"What're you on about?"

"Nonono...I met you once..."

"I never seen you in my life. Piss off."

"Okay, okay, I just thought maybe I'd seen you before...What's your name, then?"

"It's Cal," said the man, curling his lip.

Sherlock hesitated for a fraction of a second before replying,

"A'right then. Andy."

Sherlock took another swig from the borrowed glass. He stared at it for a while, trying to give the impression of being totally out of it. Then he chuckled loudly, and Cal looked at him curiously, in spite of himself.

"What's your problem?" Cal asked him.

Sherlock let a crooked smile slide onto his face. "Well, see..." he began, "I'm meetin' up later t'night...with a _girl_..." he said, as if sharing something confidential.  
 _And now for the hook..._  
"...after she gets done with her shift. At the Victoria...Then we're goin' back to my place."

He saw a flash of recognition in Cal's eyes when he mentioned the name of the restaurant. He glanced at his phone again, and then back up.

"Oh yeah? The Victoria Restaurant downtown?" He was trying hard to seem casual, but there was an unmistakably wary tone to the question.

"Yeah. Some waitress. Name's _Cecelia_."

The color drained out of Cal's face. He didn't seem to quite understand what he was hearing. Were his suspicions about his girlfriend turning out to be true? Could this drunken idiot, who just happened to be sitting next to him, be the very man she was cheating _with_? Sherlock watched out of the corner of his eye as his knuckles whitened on the cell phone unconsciously.

 _Got him_.

He could see all the cards being played out. There was a dangerous spark in the depths of Cal's angry glare that told him he'd chosen well. Now, all he needed to do in order to achieve his objective was keep feeding the fire.

So, pretending not to notice the horrified epiphany taking place next to him, he silently steeled himself to make Cal _hate_ him.

_Something shocking - has to be personal. The more graphic the better._

He twisted the smile into a lecherous sneer. "'Course, she usually likes "CC" better...like while I was shagging her into the wall last week..." He let that sink in for a moment before following with, "Says its a pet name from 'er _boyfriend_." Then he laughed. "Bloody hell, she's a screamer."

Cal's face was quickly turning from grey to a furious crimson. He'd begun to grind his teeth, and was staring at Sherlock with an expression of utter loathing.

 _God...did I really just say that?_  
The words coming out of his own mouth disgusted him, but he pressed on ruthlessly, his heart pounding with reckless energy. True, he hadn't _actually_ slept with this man's girlfriend - that honor belonged to someone else. But it didn't matter, because what he _had_ done was worse. So much worse. And the hatred and frustration he could feel radiating from Cal felt like holding a mirror up to his own emotions. He _needed_ this. He needed someone else to hate him as much as he did - and more importantly, someone who was willing to act on that hatred. Sherlock knew he wouldn't be able to get that second part from sweet, innocent Molly.  
 _Innocent? Not anymore._  
Something sharp and angry seemed to wrench inside his chest as he remembered. _  
(Monster Monster Monster -)_

So he relished the awful feeling and held onto it. It helped him keep talking. Helped him stay in character.

"And listen t' this - " He chuckled in amusement. "This is the funny part, is that him - he's got _no bloody idea_ , the sod!"

Cal's fist clenched suddenly when he realized Sherlock was referring to him. But he didn't say anything, mesmerized by incredulous outrage and disgust.

"'Course, she usually feels all _guilty_ afterward..." he went on.

_Not enough - needs a stinger._

"Ungrateful bitch."

He was feeling more and more despicable by the second.

 _Good_.

"Don't know why she cares. Bloke sounds like a total fuckwit if y'ask me," he added, throwing in another nasty smirk for good measure.

That did it - Cal couldn't stay still any longer. He leaned down, glaring daggers at Sherlock, and spoke in a low voice.

" _Listen_ , you wanker," he growled. "I dunno who the _bleedin_ 'ell you think you are...but this girl you've been screwin' around with...is _my girlfriend_. You'd better keep your filthy hands off, if y'know what's good for you."

The threat in the last few words was unmistakable. Sherlock knew just how to play the reaction. He blinked stupidly and stared at Cal in exaggerated disbelief, drawing out the moment of false comprehension. Then his eyes lit up, and he started to laugh.

" _You're_ him? You pullin' my leg, mate?"

Cal's mouth twitched furiously at the sarcastic term of endearment. Sherlock went on, speaking in a tone of amused disbelief.

"Well that's rough for you, innit?... _Sorry_ t' have to _burst your bubble_ ," he chuckled condescendingly, sounding entirely _un_ -sorry. His eyes flicked to Cal's arm and he raised his eyebrows, adding, "Looks like you might need tattoo removal." He snorted with laughter as if he found the thought hilarious, and then shook his head and went back to his drink, pretending to lose interest in the conversation. In reality, of course, he was carefully observing the other man's reaction.

Cal stared at Sherlock for a long time, looking like he wanted to strangle him right then and there. Sherlock could see the cogs turning. Some drunk, arrogant arsehole had just confirmed his suspicion that his girlfriend was cheating, admitted to being the one she was cheating _with_ , and then told him 'too bad' in the rudest way possible.

This was _not_ going to end well.

At that moment the order happened to arrive, and Cal paid the bartender before glancing back to Sherlock.

"You don't go anywhere, _pal_. I'm not done with you."

In his peripheral vision, Sherlock watched as he stalked back to the corner booth and started a muttered conversation with his large and intimidating friends, who quickly stopped laughing. At first they looked dumbstruck, then a few of them began to nod. After a minute Cal came back, this time taking a seat on the stool next to Sherlock. Turning to him, he forced the corners of his mouth up and actually _smiled_. The expression, so utterly devoid of sincerity, was chilling.

" _Well._ You know what, Andy, I think we ought t'call it a night, don't you?" he said, as he threw an arm around Sherlock's shoulders and gave him a friendly shake that was just a bit too vigorous. The dangerous glint was still clear in his eyes.

 _Not wasting any time then..._ Sherlock noted silently.

"You gents headin' out?" asked the bartender. He took in Sherlock's dazed-looking expression. "Is that one alright?"

"Naw, don't worry about 'im," Cal replied smoothly. "'e's had a few too many, if y'know what I mean?" he added, winking confidentially. He hastily rummaged a 5 pound note out of his wallet and threw it on the counter.

"Oughta cover his drink, yeah?" Then he turned back to Sherlock.

"Come on, then, _chum_. Up an' out."

Faux grin still intact - it looked a bit pained - he hoisted Sherlock from the bar-stool and started steering him forcefully towards the alleyway exit.


	7. Liberty In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder: feedback is love! I write in a vacuum - I can't tell how good (or bad) the story is unless I hear from the people reading it. :) If you've got suggestions/qualms/nitpicks, I'm more than open. As far as I'm concerned, none of this is set in stone & I'm always looking to improve my work.
> 
> CHAPTER WARNINGS: The main one this time is for threatening situations/violence. A bit of pretty intense cussing as well, once again. The word 'bender' is used to deliberately provoke a homophobic character. Dark themes, and a reference to non-con. Mentions of drinking. Goodness, that's a lot...
> 
> Thanks to PurpleYin for help with the slang. And to all the lovely readers! :)
> 
> Sherlock isn't mine - I'm just putting him through hell...

/

The last thing Molly expected to wake her was the sound of the doorbell, at 2AM. She'd been sleeping restlessly, or she might not have heard it. (She'd been sleeping restlessly a lot, recently.) She blinked groggily and raised her head, wondering whether she might have imagined the noise. After a moment, though, she heard the unmistakable sound of a fist rapping at the door. Someone was definitely knocking to come in. As she got up and made her way into the hallway, she felt a mounting sense of dread rise in her chest. There was only one person who would have the audacity to show up at her house at this ungodly hour. She began going through the motions, getting out of bed and shuffling into the hallway, stopping to turn on a light and rubbing her eyes until they adjusted to the sudden brightness.

 _Hold on, though...  
_  
Halfway to the kitchen, she hesitated. A flicker of doubt flashed into her mind which gave her pause.  
 _  
Would it really be a good idea to let him in?_

Suddenly she shivered.  
 _  
What if he's gotten high again?_

Maybe she'd be better off dialing the police.  
And grabbing a kitchen knife.  
The bell rang again.

 _But what if he's in trouble?_ , a timid voice protested. If he hadn't gotten himself wasted, then surely he wouldn't show up so ridiculously late (well, early?) unless he had no choice.

As she felt along the wall for the kitchen light-switch, fear and pain struggling against her sense of duty, she heard him pound on the door three more times. Then there was a muffled thud, and the knocking stopped abruptly.  
Alright, that was it. Something was wrong. She would have to check.  
She went to the door, hating herself for being so curious, and threw it open.

" _Oh my God_!"

/

**Several Hours Previously:**

Sherlock let himself be led away from the counter, putting on his best tipsy swagger and doing his utmost to appear totally sloshed. He leaned a bit against Cal for balance and grinned widely.

"Yeah, thanks _mate_."

Sherlock saw Cal give what he must have thought was a subtle jerk of the head to his thuggish friends in the corner. His heart began to race, speeding up against his will, but he kept up the oblivious facade.

They stepped out into the alleyway. The distant glow of a streetlamp cast long horizontal shadows, and there was a dim, harsh glimmer coming from the green and blue neon sign, reflected by the shallow puddles in the filthy gravel. Otherwise it was dark, utterly bleak, and as soon as they cleared the door Cal shoved Sherlock towards the opposite wall disgustedly, and fixed him with an ominous glare as three of his pals filed into the alley behind him.

"Oh, well, _this_ is interesting," Sherlock drawled, pretending to notice for the first time the danger of his situation.

"What, are you and your _posse_ gonna beat me up?" he taunted, and threw in a drunken giggle for good measure. "' _Ello_ there, chaps!" He greeted them theatrically, throwing his hands out. He was performing, after all, and as with everything else he'd ever committed to, he would do it thoroughly. "Here for the tea party I s'pose? Lovely ni-"

The sarcastic monologue was cut off as his body was slammed against the brick wall. Pity, that. He'd been getting into it.

"You piece'f _scum_ ," slurred Cal, in a low growl. His breath was hot and smelled like at least .11 BAC - enough to impair his judgement but not the strength of a punch. "You...sorry son-of-a- _whore_...think you can get away with this, do you? an' go n' laugh to my face?" He shook Sherlock roughly by the lapels and leaned uncomfortably close to him, leering nastily. "Y'think you're all high-an'-mighty...I could make you my _bitch.._."

 _Now wouldn't_ that _be an ironic retribution?_ , Sherlock thought for a wild moment. He could feel cold beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead, but he stared right back and managed to keep his voice steady as he went in for the kill.

"Oh, is _that_ what you want?" he jeered sarcastically. "Guess your slut of a girlfriend knew you were just some shit-faced _bender_ \- no wonder she was so desperate for me t- "

 _Crunch_.

Ah, there it was. Sherlock saw Cal finally snap, and then he had about half a second to congratulate himself before he felt the fist collide with his jaw, snapping his head sideways. The right side of his face in turn smacked against the wall, and some sharp piece of brick or concrete sliced into his cheek, leaving a stinging, bloody gash. The next thing he knew, Cal's hands were around his neck, choking him. His own hands scrabbled up, trying to pry the fingers from around his throat; that wouldn't do at all, if he was done in by _suffocation_ , when he knew that Cal was concealing a four-inch switchblade in the inside pocket of his leather jacket.

For it _was_ a switchblade - he'd known from the beginning. And on the way out he'd felt it for a split second pressing into his shoulder as he leaned on Cal for support.

Sherlock would not be cheated out of that switchblade.

He swung a knee up, catching his captor in the stomach, and when the grip around his throat slackened Sherlock twisted violently to break free, but Cal pushed at him and he stumbled sideways, falling against one of the bins with a crash. Cal's little gang had spread out to block any path of escape - cornering him. Adrenaline buzzed through his head like a cocaine high, but he couldn't tell whether it was from fear or anticipation or just the _thrill_ of the action.

One of the thugs lumbered towards him and slammed him against the alley wall for a second time. Sherlock could have easily dodged - the man was quite drunk - but he hadn't even tried to get out of the way. And now that two others had pinned his arms, he couldn't move to avoid the blow he knew was going to follow.

The first punch landed directly beneath his solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him instantly. Then the second hit followed before he was ready, right to the stomach, and he gagged and doubled over, gasping ineffectually.

An empty beer bottle shattered over the back of his head, and it brought him down hard. For a few terrifying moments he could only lay there, struggling to breathe, blinking at the stars which were suddenly obscuring his vision and trying not to pass out. Above him, Cal and his pals were laughing. Their voices sounded distorted.

"Havin' fun yet, Nancy?" he heard someone say, and then he felt more blows to his shin, his spine, his shoulder-blade. A pair of shoes came into view in front of his face, and Sherlock could only watch helplessly as Cal's right foot came flying forward to collide brutally with the side of his ribcage. There was a crack like a gunshot, and suddenly he felt a searing pain which seemed akin to being skewered with a hot poker.

Cal's voice floated down, and it took Sherlock a moment to decipher the words through the haze of agony.

"Pick 'im up."

He was seized under the arms and hauled to his feet. The two men holding him didn't loosen their grip, which was fortunate, because otherwise he probably wouldn't have been able to keep himself upright.

Cal's sneering face swam into view, inches from his own. His head felt very heavy. Someone grabbed his hair roughly and tilted his face up.

"You had enough, then?" asked Cal with a smirk.

Sherlock knew this was his last chance. He paused as if to answer...and then spat right in his tormentor's face.

Cal snarled in anger and disgust, wiping the trail of saliva from his cheek. He fixed Sherlock with a murderous glare, his expression contorted in rage.

And Sherlock knew what was coming.

"Don' know when to quit, do ya?" Cal hissed.

_He wants to. He knows it would be so easy._

"S'alright, though," he told Sherlock. His voice was dangerously subdued. "I can help you out with that."

_He's going to do it._

There it was in his eyes...clear as day.

It happened so fast. The blade of the knife reflected the glow from the neon sign, flashing through the air in a glint of cold blue light, and in the last possible instant Sherlock felt a thrill of something resembling terror. Then the blade was plunged deep into his stomach, and the light went out, and the world exploded into red.

It was a morbid victory.

The two men holding his arms let go suddenly, and he collapsed at their feet. They must not have been expecting Cal to act so rashly.

Sherlock soon realized that there was a catch to his situation: even beneath the pain, and the red, and the ringing in his ears, he sensed by the trajectory that the wound wasn't fatal.

Not immediately, anyways. Depending on what had been hit, it could take hours - days, even to die from a stabbing.

Usually.

Cal and his friends didn't know this, evidently, and he heard them arguing.

"That wasn't a good idea, mate."

"Shut up," Cal's voice snapped. "I don't fuckin' care."

"Maybe chuck 'im in the bin?" someone suggested.

"Yeah, fine. Grab his feet."

Sherlock vaguely felt himself being hoisted up by several pairs of hands, and dumped unceremoniously into the huge metal box. He landed in a pile of rubbish bags, and then the heavy lid closed and they left him to bleed to death in the stuffy, rotting darkness

/

The last thing Molly expected to wake her was the sound of the doorbell, at 2AM. She'd been sleeping restlessly, or she might not have heard it. (She'd been sleeping restlessly a lot, recently.) She blinked groggily and raised her head, wondering whether she might have imagined the noise. After a moment, though, she heard the unmistakable sound of a fist rapping at the door. Someone was definitely knocking to come in. As she got up and made her way into the hallway, she felt a mounting sense of dread rise in her chest. There was only one person who would have the audacity to show up at her house at this ungodly hour. She began going through the motions, getting out of bed and shuffling into the hallway, stopping to turn on a light and rubbing her eyes until they adjusted to the sudden brightness.

 _Hold on, though...  
_  
Halfway to the kitchen, she hesitated. A flicker of doubt flashed into her mind which gave her pause.  
 _  
Would it really be a good idea to let him in?_

Suddenly she shivered.  
 _  
What if he's gotten high again?_

Maybe she'd be better off dialing the police.  
And grabbing a kitchen knife.  
The bell rang again.

 _But what if he's in trouble?_ , a timid voice protested. If he hadn't gotten himself wasted, then surely he wouldn't show up so ridiculously late (well, early?) unless he had no choice.

As she felt along the wall for the kitchen light-switch, fear and pain struggling against her sense of duty, she heard him pound on the door three more times. Then there was a muffled thud, and the knocking stopped abruptly.  
Alright, that was it. Something was wrong. She would have to check.  
She went to the door, hating herself for being so curious, and threw it open.

" _Oh my God_!"

/

**Several Hours Previously:**

Sherlock let himself be led away from the counter, putting on his best tipsy swagger and doing his utmost to appear totally sloshed. He leaned a bit against Cal for balance and grinned widely.

"Yeah, thanks _mate_."

Sherlock saw Cal give what he must have thought was a subtle jerk of the head to his thuggish friends in the corner. His heart began to race, speeding up against his will, but he kept up the oblivious facade.

They stepped out into the alleyway. The distant glow of a streetlamp cast long horizontal shadows, and there was a dim, harsh glimmer coming from the green and blue neon sign, reflected by the shallow puddles in the filthy gravel. Otherwise it was dark, utterly bleak, and as soon as they cleared the door Cal shoved Sherlock towards the opposite wall disgustedly, and fixed him with an ominous glare as three of his pals filed into the alley behind him.

"Oh, well, _this_ is interesting," Sherlock drawled, pretending to notice for the first time the danger of his situation.

"What, are you and your _posse_ gonna beat me up?" he taunted, and threw in a drunken giggle for good measure. "' _Ello_ there, chaps!" He greeted them theatrically, throwing his hands out. He was performing, after all, and as with everything else he'd ever committed to, he would do it thoroughly. "Here for the tea party I s'pose? Lovely ni-"

The sarcastic monologue was cut off as his body was slammed against the brick wall. Pity, that. He'd been getting into it.

"You piece'f _scum_ ," slurred Cal, in a low growl. His breath was hot and smelled like at least .11 BAC - enough to impair his judgement but not the strength of a punch. "You...sorry son-of-a- _whore_...think you can get away with this, do you? an' go n' laugh to my face?" He shook Sherlock roughly by the lapels and leaned uncomfortably close to him, leering nastily. "Y'think you're all high-an'-mighty...I could make you my _bitch.._."

 _Now wouldn't_ that _be an ironic retribution?_ , Sherlock thought for a wild moment. He could feel cold beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead, but he stared right back and managed to keep his voice steady as he went in for the kill.

"Oh, is _that_ what you want?" he jeered sarcastically. "Guess your slut of a girlfriend knew you were just some shit-faced _bender_ \- no wonder she was so desperate for me t- "

 _Crunch_.

Ah, there it was. Sherlock saw Cal finally snap, and then he had about half a second to congratulate himself before he felt the fist collide with his jaw, snapping his head sideways. The right side of his face in turn smacked against the wall, and some sharp piece of brick or concrete sliced into his cheek, leaving a stinging, bloody gash. The next thing he knew, Cal's hands were around his neck, choking him. His own hands scrabbled up, trying to pry the fingers from around his throat; that wouldn't do at all, if he was done in by _suffocation_ , when he knew that Cal was concealing a four-inch switchblade in the inside pocket of his leather jacket.

For it _was_ a switchblade - he'd known from the beginning. And on the way out he'd felt it for a split second pressing into his shoulder as he leaned on Cal for support.

Sherlock would not be cheated out of that switchblade.

He swung a knee up, catching his captor in the stomach, and when the grip around his throat slackened Sherlock twisted violently to break free, but Cal pushed at him and he stumbled sideways, falling against one of the bins with a crash. Cal's little gang had spread out to block any path of escape - cornering him. Adrenaline buzzed through his head like a cocaine high, but he couldn't tell whether it was from fear or anticipation or just the _thrill_ of the action.

One of the thugs lumbered towards him and slammed him against the alley wall for a second time. Sherlock could have easily dodged - the man was quite drunk - but he hadn't even tried to get out of the way. And now that two others had pinned his arms, he couldn't move to avoid the blow he knew was going to follow.

The first punch landed directly beneath his solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him instantly. Then the second hit followed before he was ready, right to the stomach, and he gagged and doubled over, gasping ineffectually.

An empty beer bottle shattered over the back of his head, and it brought him down hard. For a few terrifying moments he could only lay there, struggling to breathe, blinking at the stars which were suddenly obscuring his vision and trying not to pass out. Above him, Cal and his pals were laughing. Their voices sounded distorted.

"Havin' fun yet, Nancy?" he heard someone say, and then he felt more blows to his shin, his spine, his shoulder-blade. A pair of shoes came into view in front of his face, and Sherlock could only watch helplessly as Cal's right foot came flying forward to collide brutally with the side of his ribcage. There was a crack like a gunshot, and suddenly he felt a searing pain which seemed akin to being skewered with a hot poker.

Cal's voice floated down, and it took Sherlock a moment to decipher the words through the haze of agony.

"Pick 'im up."

He was seized under the arms and hauled to his feet. The two men holding him didn't loosen their grip, which was fortunate, because otherwise he probably wouldn't have been able to keep himself upright.

Cal's sneering face swam into view, inches from his own. His head felt very heavy. Someone grabbed his hair roughly and tilted his face up.

"You had enough, then?" asked Cal with a smirk.

Sherlock knew this was his last chance. He paused as if to answer...and then spat right in his tormentor's face.

Cal snarled in anger and disgust, wiping the trail of saliva from his cheek. He fixed Sherlock with a murderous glare, his expression contorted in rage.

And Sherlock knew what was coming.

"Don' know when to quit, do ya?" Cal hissed.

_He wants to. He knows it would be so easy._

"S'alright, though," he told Sherlock. His voice was dangerously subdued. "I can help you out with that."

_He's going to do it._

There it was in his eyes...clear as day.

It happened so fast. The blade of the knife reflected the glow from the neon sign, flashing through the air in a glint of cold blue light, and in the last possible instant Sherlock felt a thrill of something resembling terror. Then the blade was plunged deep into his stomach, and the light went out, and the world exploded into red.

It was a morbid victory.

The two men holding his arms let go suddenly, and he collapsed at their feet. They must not have been expecting Cal to act so rashly.

Sherlock soon realized that there was a catch to his situation: even beneath the pain, and the red, and the ringing in his ears, he sensed by the trajectory that the wound wasn't fatal.

Not immediately, anyways. Depending on what had been hit, it could take hours - days, even to die from a stabbing.

Usually.

Cal and his friends didn't know this, evidently, and he heard them arguing.

"That wasn't a good idea, mate."

"Shut up," Cal's voice snapped. "I don't fuckin' care."

"Maybe chuck 'im in the bin?" someone suggested.

"Yeah, fine. Grab his feet."

Sherlock vaguely felt himself being hoisted up by several pairs of hands, and dumped unceremoniously into the huge metal box. He landed in a pile of rubbish bags, and then the heavy lid closed and they left him to bleed to death in the stuffy, rotting darkness.


	8. Not An Option

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Make way for the hurt/comfort! Though at this point it's a bit more in the style of an ER drama...
> 
> I actually wrote most of this chapter before I'd even decided the details of how Sherlock was going to get himself all beat up, so it was a tricky thing to write the link.  
> I did do a bit of medical research, and I have close relatives who are doctors, so hopefully the technicalities in this section come across as at least /plausible/. Stabbings, like gunshot wounds, can vary wildly in severity, and everyone reacts differently as well, so I figured it wasn't too much of a stretch that Sherlock - being the crazy Determinator that he is - would be able to heave himself out of a garbage bin and stagger the 15-minute walk back to Molly's flat...(though I imagine it took a while longer than that...)
> 
> On a sillier note, I can't help wondering if anyone noticed in chapter 6 that Sherlock's pseudonym ("Andy") sounds suspiciously like a truncated version of "Anderson"...  
> Additionally, in this chapter, I...somehow...managed to throw in a title drop AND subtle references to both Atonement and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. (The latter is a bit more obscure. Good lord, what is wrong with me?...) It just sort of...happened. Um. Yeah.
> 
> Chapter Warnings: general - dark subject matter, blood, but not very graphic
> 
> [Disclaimer goes here. Insert something witty.]

/

" _Oh my God_!"  
/

Sherlock had collapsed onto his knees, and was leaning against Molly's doorframe, shivering uncontrollably. There were bruise marks around his neck, and a large gash on his cheek. His hair was matted with congealing blood - some of it had dripped down and dried on his forehead. His left hand was clenched over a spot on the side of his abdomen. Bright, fresh blood was seeping through his fingers.

Molly gasped in horror.

"Oh! Oh, God. Oh no! Here - quickly!"

Fear, anger, doubt - all of it flew right out the window, as panic kicked in at the sight before her. All she could see was a man in trouble, and in pain, and the need to help him momentarily overrode any conflicting feelings which might have advised her otherwise.

She rushed to his side, seizing his right arm to try to pull him upright. She draped it over her shoulder and put her left arm around his waist, and with her help he managed to get to his feet. Almost immediately, though, he lost his balance and leaned against her for support. She could barely hold him up.

A million questions pounded through her head, incoherently fast. What had he done? Where had he gone? How long had he been like this? What was the extent of his injuries? Was he still in danger? _What had happened_?

They both staggered inside - she made sure he didn't trip over the threshold. She meant to take him to the couch, but they'd only gotten as far as the kitchen when her strength gave out. She stumbled, and his arm slipped from her shoulder.

A cry of alarm escaped her as he landed heavily on the cold floor, nearly striking his head against the table leg. He groaned loudly, and his body curled in on itself, one hand still clutching tightly at his right side, just below the ribs.

"Right. I'm calling the paramedics," she said, moving automatically towards the phone.

" _No!_ " she heard him rasp.

"What?"

"Don't...call...- Can't risk it..."

" _Risk it_?" she responded, in hysterical disbelief. "You're _dying_!" Her voice was about an octave higher than normal.

" _Please..._ "

She looked down at him in surprise, and he was staring at her intensely, _beseechingly_ even.

"I - I..." She bit her lip. "Alright," she said quietly.

And as she agreed to his request, she knew beyond a doubt that it meant she was going to help him herself. There was simply no other acceptable option.

He strained futilely to lift himself with one arm, huffing in pain and frustration.

"Oh - oh, don't. Don't try to move," she advised urgently, watching his feet scuff in vain against the floor. His arm shook and gave out.

_Too weak to support his own weight - definitely a bad sign._

She knew she couldn't pause to think, or she'd panic.

There was a first aid kit in the cabinet over the microwave. She ran to it and wrenched the door open, rummaging through various cold medicines and half-empty boxes of plasters for the red kit towards the back, not caring when a bottle of multivitamins fell out and broke on the floor as she shoved it out of the way. She grabbed the kit, and a bottle of peroxide as well, and then she fell to her knees next to him and guided him onto his back as carefully as she could. She moved his left hand gingerly and felt the color drain from her cheeks when she saw how much blood there was. With trembling hands she unbuttoned the lower half of his shirt and pulled the bloodstained fabric aside to look at the wound.

One clean, horizontal gash. Knife.

Oh God. He'd been _stabbed_.

The incision was small; probably the work of a switchblade. But it looked deep. And she had no way of knowing how long he'd been staggering about, aggravating the internal lacerations.

She pressed the roll of gauze firmly over the wound, and it made him gasp in pain.

" _AAaahhh_ \- "

"Here...keep pressure on it..." she told him, trying to stop her voice from shaking. He did so, breathing heavily through clenched teeth.

Oh _God_...he must have a broken rib as well...

She undid the rest of the buttons on his shirt. Sure enough, there was a small protrusion on the side of his chest which shouldn't have been there, with a nasty-looking purple bruise already forming around it.

Her head began to spin with the urgency of everything she didn't know. Just how long ago had this happened? Exactly how bad was the internal bleeding? How far had he had to drag himself to get here?...

Hearing a sudden sharp intake of breath brought her quickly back to the moment. She stood up and rushed to get him a glass of water, praying that the puncture wasn't low enough to have caused a gastrointestinal laceration, because then there would be a high risk of infection, and if that happened she didn't even want to _think_ about what it would mean. He was already in danger of going into shock, with the possible the extent of the blood loss. If there was no way to set up a transfusion at the moment to counteract the drop in blood pressure, this would have to be the next best thing.

She knelt next to him again, setting the glass beside her on the floor. She lifted his head gently with both hands and cradled it in her lap.

"Sherlock," she said to him, "please, you need to drink something."

She put the glass to his lips. He tried to reach up to hold it himself, but his face blanched and he winced at the movement.

"It's okay - let me."

He did, not having much of a choice in the matter. She made him take small sips, so he wouldn't choke, while with her other hand she cleaned the gash on his cheek, using a piece of gauze soaked in peroxide. He finished the whole glass, even though some of the water spilled out, dripping down the sides of his neck and into her lap. She couldn't tell if the pained look on his face was from the physical wounds, or from humiliation at being handled like someone helpless.

 _Helpless._ There had been far too much of that lately...

"What happened?" she asked him.

He took a few shallow breaths before answering hoarsely.

"Picked a fight..."

" _What_?"

"He...had friends..." The corner of his mouth twitched.

" _Why_?" she wondered incredulously. "Why would you...how could...?"

 _How could you be so_ stupid _?_

"I thh-...tho... _nnn_ -" he made a pained noise in his throat, gritting his teeth until the spasm had subsided.

"...thought you'd...want this..." he panted.

" _What_?" she breathed in bewilderment.

He stared up at her.

"I deserve it," he murmured, almost matter-of-factly. "I hurt you...fair is fair..."

The inside of her chest seemed to collapse in horror, as she realized what he was saying.

"NO." she told him vehemently. "No. Sherlock, _NO._ Not like this." She swallowed. Angry tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.

Molly could feel a full-blown rant rising to her throat. All the rage and the confusion and the fear she'd bottled up during the past few weeks were swirling inside her, and now _this_ , this was the final straw.

"What the _hell_ were you thinking?" she demanded furiously. "You, of all people!...You're saying - this was supposed to be some - some...sort of _noble retribution_?" She felt sickened by the very thought.

Sherlock was shocked at the ferocity in Molly's voice. Why was she _angry_? This wasn't at all what he'd wanted...

"An eye for an eye - is that it?" she went on. "You _logically_ decided to devise this - this _bloody_ stupid plot to reach some kind of twisted atonement?" The words kept tumbling out of her mouth, and painful sobs as well, but she couldn't stop - the panic and adrenaline were making her heart race and the momentum of her emotions kept pulling her along and there was nothing she could do.

"You can't just follow through on some... _idiotic,_ masochistic whim because you want to - to avenge your honor!"

She was calling him out, desperate to make him see sense.

"That's not noble, Sherlock; it's _selfish_!"

_It scared me to death..._

Sherlock winced at the accusation, but didn't try to defend himself.

"And then...my _God_...you...you _dragged_ yourself back to my _flat_ , looking like this?" she exclaimed. "...And you tell me that you thought I would _wish_ this on you! On _anyone_?" It was a cry of horror and disgust and disbelief and bewilderment, all in one. She swallowed, catching her breath. The tears were streaming freely now. "Is that honestly what you think of me? Do you know how that makes me _feel_?"

Silence.

No, he didn't, she realized. He didn't know. That was always his problem, wasn't it?

She met his confused gaze resolutely.

"You _don't_ get to hurt yourself because of me."

Sherlock's eyes widened as he realized his mistake. Evidently, the thought that she would feel _guilty_ about his plan for comeuppance hadn't occurred to him.

"I'm sorry," he told her softly. "I was thoughtless...I...should have realized th...that you wouldn't...want the blood on your hands..." His mouth twitched at the ironic choice of words.

But she only shook her head at him.

"You don't get it, do you?" she asked sadly. "I..."

She swallowed.

"I don't... _hate_ you, you know..."

As she said it, she knew, somehow, that it was true.

It occurred to her to wonder why. He'd broken her trust, and her heart, and he'd hurt her terribly. And maybe...maybe she couldn't forgive him for that - not yet. But still the fact remained. He was still Sherlock. The one who'd trusted her. They'd even been friends...of a sort...hadn't they? Weren't they still? She was the one he'd come to for help, when he was most desperate. And now, he needed her help again.

"Maybe I should hate you," she admitted quietly. "Maybe you do deserve it. But...I still - I don't want...I could never -" she cut off, taking a shaky breath. Her voice dropped to a miserable whisper.

"For God's sake, Sherlock...I don't want you to _die_..."

His eyes were still wide, and they searched her face as they so often had before. But for once, rather than deducing her, they seemed to be asking a question. The air was tense for a moment. Then Sherlock exhaled softly, and his expression shut down in despair.

"I can't do anything right, can I?"

She let out a bitter laugh at the complete absurdity of the whole horrible situation, and brushed one dark lock of hair from his sweat-drenched forehead. Several tears streamed down her cheeks and fell among the wavy tresses on his head.

It was the second time she'd seen him look like this, and she hated herself for noticing the poetic beauty of the thin crimson streams of blood against his inky hair and pale skin. Pain shouldn't look _pretty_. It was just cruel.

Suddenly his body went rigid, and he squeezed his eyes shut, his expression contorted in agony. The fingers of his right hand started clenching and unclenching frantically against the tiled linoleum. He was shaking.

Molly heard a soft noise escape his throat, and the sound was so unlike him that it paralyzed her with fear. It was a pained whimper; one which made her think of a frightened child, or a small wounded animal. The fact that something like that had come from _him_ made her blood run cold. Her heart pounded in her throat, and she tried desperately not to panic.

Not knowing what else to do, she shifted his head carefully in her lap and reached out to take his hand. At her touch, his fingers stopped scrabbling against the floor and instead sought her, clinging on desperately. His grip hurt, a lot, but she didn't say anything - only squeezed back, and bit her lower lip to keep from sobbing out loud.

He made a noise, like he was trying to speak.

" _...mm_..."

She leaned in closer, trying to hear.

"... _Molly?_..."

"Yes?" she asked, terrified.

He whimpered again. Suddenly his grip on her hand slackened. She looked down at him and saw his eyes beginning to roll back.

" _Sherlock_!" she said in alarm.

"Sherlock? No - _Hey_ , look at me - come on, now..." she tapped the side of his cheek firmly, trying to get him to snap out of it. Frantically, she held a hand up above his face. He blinked at it groggily.

" _uuh_..."

" _Focus_ , _please,_ Sherlock. How many fingers am I -? No! No, don't you dare..."

His eyelids flickered shut, and his head lolled to the side in her lap.

She felt a choked sob rise in her throat, but she swallowed it back.

" _No_. - Sherlock, please..."

Her heart skipped a beat when she noticed that his chest was still rising and falling shallowly. She pressed two fingers to his carotid artery and felt a pulse, weak but steady.

"It's alright," she told herself. "He's only passed out."

 _He's dying_.

"It's okay. He'll be fine." She willed herself not to cry.

 _You don't know that_.

"No. It'll be okay."

She only wished she could make herself believe it.


	9. A Rock and A Hard Place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It seems this fic has won a SAMFA! (Sherlock and Molly Fanfic Awards, for those who are unfamiliar.) Helpless won Best M-Rated Angst. *squees loudly* *tosses confetti* Thanks to whoever had a hand in that. :)
> 
> This chapter was particularly challenging, because it involved a LOT of really technical emergency medical know-how, of which I have none, because I'm a freshman in art school. However, I'm fortunate enough to have a...close relative...(refuses to specify...) who is a legit doctor. So eventually I caved and asked for some advice, in addition to buckling down and doing some serious research on the Interweb, because I really did want to make it as accurate as I could. If any doctors are reading my story (which would be pretty cool), feel free to nitpick. Or Brit-pick for that matter, if you're British - I'm still working on that, too.
> 
> Not my characters, Chapter Warnings for blood/surgery/mild language.
> 
> Enjoy!

/ **  
**

_Oh, God._

_Ohgodohgodohgod..._

Molly took one slow breath in, and out, pushing back the panic, burying it in the recesses of her mind - or doing her best, at least.

She was still extremely tempted to phone 999, and never mind whatever Sherlock said about it. He was _dying_ , for _God's_ sake - he had no reason to be picky...

But he'd had a point - surely he would be recognized? And even if not, surely someone would phone the police, when he had such a suspicious-looking injury. Not being a relative, she'd have no control over what would happen to him. And then what would they do when they discovered he had no identification?...Everything would get so complicated...

Wasn't there _anyone_ she could call?

He had a brother, right? Yes; she'd met him once before. At the morgue, in fact, after that disaster of a Christmas party. It felt like eons ago...

Sherlock had actually mentioned his brother, in passing, during the first few days after the Incident, admitting that they'd need his help to keep up the pretense of his death, and to track down anyone else who might have been in league with Jim. (No, not Jim - _Moriarty_.) But it was obvious, even to her, that the two of them weren't on the best of terms. Sherlock had clearly hated the idea of going to him for help, however necessary it undoubtedly would be for the success of his machinations. ' _My brother_ ,' Sherlock had insisted bitterly, ' _is to be involved as little as possible._ '

It had even seemed, to her, that Sherlock blamed him somehow for what had happened. Though, she couldn't possibly fathom why that would be the case...

Perhaps he'd needed a scapegoat. She supposed that made sense; he was _human_ , after all. Unfortunately, that particular method of venting his frustration hadn't proved to be sufficient.

She only wished he'd been able to find an outlet which could have been less...catastrophic.

Despite the fact that Molly had been instrumentally involved in a significant portion of his schemes, Sherlock had never openly discussed any affairs concerning his brother. Whatever specific plans he'd had in mind, he'd neither shared with her nor gotten around to carrying out. Molly wouldn't have minded, except for the consequence that she now had no way of contacting the elder Holmes. She couldn't even remember his name.

And meanwhile, Sherlock was bleeding out onto the kitchen floor.

 _Forget it_ , she told herself firmly, trying to blink away the tears. They continued to flow persistently, clouding her vision. She sniffed and wiped her eyes on her shirtsleeves. She was on her own. There was no one she could ask for help.

_Except -_

Except...

_Oh, God. Not him. Anything but that._

She glanced up and saw her cell phone on the kitchen counter, charging by the outlet next to the microwave.

Before she could recall making a conscious decision, it was in her hand.

And ringing...

/

_This is John Watson's phone. Leave a message._

_*beep*_

"John, i-it's Molly. I -"

Suddenly she gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth.

_Oh, God, NO!_

Molly dropped the phone as if it had burned her. The full magnitude of what she'd done hit her with a sickening crash. She scrambled to pick it up, trying to remember which button meant 'delete recording,' but the call had already ended.

" _Shit_!"

She swore in panic, hoping against hope that the message hadn't gone through.

Then, her heart stopped again, and suddenly she was horrified with herself, because it occurred to her that John might _actually_ be her only option.

She could not, in a million years, do nothing and let Sherlock die. This was a fact. It would be illegal, for one, but that was the least of her motivations.

For a wild moment she wondered whether she could somehow _sneak_ him into the hospital, but the thought of trying to move him now, all by herself, was preposterous.

She was at a total loss.

She didn't know what to do.

The thought of calling John terrified her. But she wasn't sure if she had a choice, if she wanted Sherlock to live.

And she very much did want him to live.

_Damned if I do. Damned if I don't._

A choked sob escaped against her will. She pressed her knuckles into her lips, but it didn't stop her shoulders from shaking, or keep the tears from flowing down her cheeks.

She was nearly on the verge of phoning back, or possibly even going to 221B herself, when next to her, Sherlock gasped and gritted his teeth, and she remembered that she had no time for this - no time at all.

"Sherlock?"

She fell to her knees again and put her hands behind his head, brushing her thumb against his cheek softly. His skin felt clammy and too cold.

He mumbled something incoherent, and his eyes fluttered halfway open, but they were glassy and unfocused. She wasn't sure he knew she was there.

"Sherlock, please, can you hear me?"

He shuddered and didn't answer.

"Sherlock, you'll be okay...I _swear_..."

Why had she said that? She couldn't guarantee him anything of the kind. No one was coming to help.

 _I'll do it, then. I'll fix him myself_.

She left no room for if's.

Molly laid his head gently on the floor, as her mind flooded with every fact she'd ever learned about emergency treatments. They darted around her brain all at once like a school of minnows, while she tried to sift through for information that would actually be _useful_.

_What first? Okay...Treat for shock. Yes? Yes._

She could see the initial symptoms - shaking, clammy skin, losing consciousness - but at the very least his breathing was still regular, so it hadn't progressed to a critical level...yet...

_THINK._

"Right," she said out loud, trying to clear her head.

She'd need to elevate his legs...

Get a blanket. Okay. She could do this.

 _Just keep telling yourself that_...

She picked herself off the floor and went to the linen cupboard at the end of the hall, where she kept extra bedding. She grabbed the first two blankets she could reach, and an extra pillow.

Back in the kitchen, she folded both of the blankets and put them under his feet, then changed her mind, swapped the pillow for one of the blankets, and put the second blanket over his shoulders. She didn't put anything under his head, for fear that it might further restrict his already shallow breathing.

Okay. So far, so...decent.

The blood. That was next. He was still losing blood - he'd die if she didn't do something about it.

_I could steal a bag of donor blood from the hospital -_

She didn't know his blood type.

_Type O-, then, and then I bring it back and set up an intravenous drip and -_

No! Stealing blood from the hospital? She wasn't being at all realistic.

She groaned in frustration and scrubbed her hands over her face.

What she _really_ needed to do, right now, was close the stab wound. That was the source of all the blood loss. He'd been staggering around London for who knew how long, and whatever internal organ damage there was to begin with probably required surgical treatment by now, if it hadn't already. She needed a sterile scalpel, a surgical needle, and several inches of polyglycolide suture thread…None of which, she was sure, were included in a basic home first-aid package.

 _They'd be in an_ army doctor's _medic kit._

Not helping. Molly told the voice in the back of her mind to shut up. She'd already called John, and he hadn't answered his phone. What was she supposed to do - sprint halfway across the city and break into 221B? Sherlock could be dead by the time she got back.

Okay, fine. What about a creative substitution? She had a sewing needle laying around the flat somewhere, and it wouldn't be all that hard to sterilize with boiling water...

Her options were dwindling rapidly. There didn't seem to be any better solution immediately available.

 _Well_ , she thought grimly, _it'll have to be good enough_.

She looked back at Sherlock. He was out again. Molly noted that he didn't seem to be any worse than he'd been three minutes ago, which she chose to interpret as a good sign. She re-checked his pulse anyways before lighting up the stove and finding a clean saucepan.

_Oh God...I'm actually going to do this, aren't I?_

Yes, yes she was. She tried not to think to hard about the fact that she was a pathologist, and not a surgeon. Right now the important thing was to focus on the task at hand.

What else did she need?...

Gloves.

Not the rubber kitchen ones - much too bulky. There was a box of thin vinyl gloves under her sink. She never bought latex, because she couldn't stand the smell and the icky powdery residue they left on your hands.

Scissors.

Kitchen drawer. Easy.

Scalpel.

_Right..._

She knew for a fact that there was a scalpel-sized X-acto knife with extra blades in the craft drawer in her living room. She had a few reservations about performing a surgical operation with the tool she used to cut colored construction paper for decorating her scrapbooks.

_But then again..._

She glanced with trepidation at the assortment of kitchen knives next to the microwave.

_Okay...X-acto blade it is..._

While the water was heating on the stove, she dashed around her flat, picking up the proper supplies.

There was still the problem of thread. Of the proper material thread, rather. She had sewing spools; those were no good. What else? Fishing wire? No.

_I don't even have that._

_Don't be such an idiot!_

She stood frozen in the hallway as her thoughts began to spiral out of control.

_Oh my God oh my God ohmyGod..._

The panic was rising again.

_Shut UP._

Molly squeezed her eyes shut, trying to ignore the frenzied, terrified whispers clouding her mind.

Wasn't there anything she could use? A synthetic fiber, something sterile...

Suddenly her heart leaped hopefully. It was a somewhat painful sensation.

_Oh!..._

Now, _that_ might work.

/

She laid out all her makeshift supplies on a layer of paper towels, in a shallow baking tray. In the ten minutes it had taken to sterilize the metal instruments in boiling water, she'd done the most productive thing she could think of, which was to go straight to the Internet. 97,800 hits on Google for 'how to suture a stab wound.' Most of the results weren't very useful; the general consensus was that she ought to "get the victim to a hospital with all haste, and let the professionals administer the proper care."

Right. Thanks a lot.

She had removed the gauze, and cleaned the area (but not the wound itself) with peroxide. She'd set out the rest of the kitchen towel in case she needed it to clear away the blood. As an after-thought, she'd even tied a kerchief over her nose and mouth in lieu of a surgical mask. The sterilized knife was held neatly between her fingers, with its razor-sharp blade poised to cut.

But she didn't cut. Her hands were shaking.

She knew what was supposed to happen. One of the more credible-looking Internet sources had confirmed that, as she'd suspected, a diagonal cut needed to be made below the original wound in order to access the damaged internal tissue. Based on the location of the puncture, she guessed that it had been a clean hit to the liver. If he'd been stabbed lower, in the intestines, he'd probably be dead by now due to septic shock. A liver wound didn't have to be fatal. He was already remarkably lucky.

Incisions she could do. She could practically handle a scalpel in her sleep. Stitching, fine. She'd done that a thousand times as well.

What made her pause was the subtle rise and fall of his breath, and the heat radiating from his skin which she could feel even through the vinyl gloves: reminders of exactly what was at stake. Of the fact that her patient was _alive_ , and if she made a horribly wrong move, that might no longer be the case.

She'd never done a live surgery. Autopsies were cold. Removed. A dead person didn't care if you nicked an internal organ accidentally, or pulled a stitch slightly too tight. There was no consequence, no pressure, no time limit.

The operation would be so much easier if Sherlock were dead. But, if he were dead, there would be no need for the operation in the first place.

She stared at her hands, paralyzed, as her imagination ran wild, filling her mind's eye with nightmare scenarios. What if Sherlock died in her flat? What would she do with the body? Would she have to drag it away in the dead of night like a serial killer? Would the police come and arrest her for conspiracy, and murder, and sentence her to eighty years of hard labor in a top-security government facility full of hardened criminals?

How had this happened? Why was _she_ the one Sherlock had to rely on? John Watson should be in her place. He wouldn't be hesitating.

God, what would _he_ think, if she couldn't save him?

John...He was out there somewhere, depending on her, and he didn't even know it.

_Oh my God..._

That was it. That was the key; the realization that cut through the horrible fantasies and brought her back down to Earth. She remembered that there were people counting on her. Other people who wanted Sherlock to live. Or, at least, who _would_ if they didn't think he was already dead. It was a fact that could have scared her even more, but she chose instead to draw strength from it, because she didn't have any other choice. She _had_ to pull herself together, for all of them. For John, and Inspector Lestrade, and the landlady at 221B, and the brother whose name she would definitely have to ask about later...

And, of course, for Sherlock. It _was_ his life at stake here.

She closed her eyes, and breathed, and her hands stopped shaking, and her heart stopped racing, and when she opened them again she was as ready as she was ever going to be.

/

Molly made the first incision whilst fervently praying that he wouldn't wake up. At least, not until she was finished. She did want him to wake up eventually.

She worked with the utmost precision, channeling a good deal more focus and sensitivity than she normally would have used for such a simple procedure. The internal bleeding, she was relieved to discover, was originating from a single laceration on the liver; as far as she could tell, no other major organs had been damaged. The wound had torn slightly, but was still no wider than a few centimeters. Nothing she couldn't handle. She set aside her bloody X-acto knife and picked up the needle, having had the good sense to thread it beforehand with the makeshift suture thread, in order to expedite the process as much as possible.

The first stitch went through the center of the cut, pulling the edges together. She remembered not to pull it too tight, or else the tissue wouldn't receive proper circulation. Molly wasn't used to working with so much blood, as cadavers didn't do much bleeding. It meant she had to be more careful, since she couldn't see what she was doing as well as she would have liked.

She was halfway done stitching up the wound when Sherlock groaned faintly, and the needle nearly jumped out of her hand in alarm. She froze where she was, not wanting to do another stitch in case he moved. To her horror, he opened his eyes and stared at her hands sticking halfway into his abdominal cavity. She had no idea whether or not he was lucid, but the expression on his face could only be described as one of bewildered fascination. Then, perhaps, the shock or total lack of anesthetic caught up with him, because he promptly passed out again, making her job infinitely more manageable.

She put in the final stitch and knotted it as quickly she dared, eager to have done with the stressful ordeal. She double-checked her work, and was satisfied that the internal bleeding had been entirely staunched; now it would only be a matter of replacing what he'd lost. However much that was - she didn't know. If she had to guess, judging by the state of him, she'd say close to two liters.

She ended the operation by stitching up the long incision she'd made with the X-acto blade. The puncture from the stab wound was small and clean enough that it would heal just fine on its own if she taped it up with a few steri-strips or a plain old plaster from the first-aid kit.

She knotted and cut the thread after the final stitch, soaked up the fresh blood with a piece of kitchen towel, stripped off the bloody gloves, and removed the kerchief.

That was it. She'd done it.

Now the only thing for it was to hope for the best, and wait for Sherlock to wake up again. She sat back, exhausted, against the kitchen counter, and drifted into a semi-conscious stupor.

/

Not ten minutes later, he shifted next to her and opened his eyes again, looking more alert than she'd seen him since the first time he'd fallen unconscious. She started, and sat upright.

"Sherlock?"

He blinked.

"Molly..."

"What do you need?" she asked him. She would always ask.

"I..." he winced. His voice was so hoarse she could hardly hear him. "...water?"

"Oh!"

Of course. He needed to drink something straight away. He'd just lost possibly a third of his blood. She threw open the fridge door and looked for something with electrolytes.

"How about a Sobe Lifewater?"

He probably couldn't care less. It would certainly do for now.

She helped him just as she had earlier, holding his head up gently and making sure he didn't choke by drinking too quickly. By this point he was either too exhausted or too dejected to even act chagrined at having to rely on her assistance. He finished about half of it before he had to stop, because he was starting to feel sick.

"Think you could eat something without throwing up?"

He hesitated, then shook his head shortly.

"Okay. That's fine."

He didn't say anything. She followed his gaze to the newly-sutured incision below his ribs.

"Stitched you up myself."

"Did a good job, too, I see..." he commented dully. It ought to have felt like a compliment. Instead it worried her that he sounded so put-out by the fact.

"I suppose we'll find out," she said quietly. She certainly hoped he was right.

It felt like nothing short of a miracle - he already seemed to be recovering. His voice was stronger, and an infinitesimal amount of color had returned to his pallid complexion. Molly felt a delayed emotional response rising up in her chest, now that he looked to be out of immediate danger. Everything she'd firmly repressed while in operation mode overwhelmed her at once, and she felt the familiar heat behind her eyes and pinching sensation in the bridge of her nose that meant she was going to cry. But she didn't care. She even laughed weakly, as the tears started to flow.

She was still cradling his head. Sherlock closed his eyes again, and his breathing evened and slowed; this time, though, she was fairly certain he had simply gone to sleep. She sobbed with relief and stroked his blood-matted hair and almost smiled.

She'd done it. He was going to live.


	10. Liminality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this one is a bit of an anomaly. Tonally, structurally, it didn't fit in with the rest of the chapter, but I still wanted to put it into the story, since it's a good little insight into Sherlock's mind, as well as giving a bit of back-story. (To be fair, it is supposed to be disorienting, since he's still drifting in and out.) It was difficult to write and I'm not sure if I nailed it, (let me know?), but now it is out of my system and we can plow straight ahead to the juicy stuff!
> 
> Sherlock & affiliated characters are not mine.
> 
> Warnings: bit of gore, references to drug use.

/

liminal |ˈlimənl| (adj.): occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.

~/~/~/~/

Sherlock had been having the most horrid dream…

It started out, probably, as a running dream...and initially, he was in pursuit; on a wild chase. But the more he ran, the more it had seemed like running away. He sprinted faster and faster, knowing that if he so much as stumbled, _it_ would catch him. The formless menace was gaining; he knew it was there even though he didn't turn around to look. His heart pounded in terror, but he couldn't hear it - couldn't hear anything except screaming. From everywhere, the screaming - always the same - voiceless and surreal and not quite his own but not quite not either, and suddenly it was so difficult to move, and everything felt sluggish and heavy and he was rooted to the spot, and -  
The scene shifted.  
He was at 221B. The monster, and the screaming were gone, and instead John Watson was there, yelling at him about something trivial - it might have been bacteria cultures in the microwave...He found it difficult to pay attention because he couldn't understand why John was talking to him with Mycroft's voice. When Sherlock opened his mouth to make a reply, he found he couldn't speak, and instead of words there was hot, metallic blood gushing up from his throat. He looked down in horror, and saw that his whole body had been rent open, and everything inside his torso was spilling out onto the floor, and he panicked - either because he thought he was going to die, or because Mrs. Hudson hated finding stains on the rug; one of the two.  
When he looked back up, the John-with-Mycroft's-voice had turned into Molly, and she was trying to stuff all his eviscerated guts back into his body, even as the blood kept gushing out like a gory waterfall. Her hands and arms were stained red and she kept telling him over and over, "Sherlock, you're such an idiot. You're a bloody idiot."  
Then the floor swallowed him up and whole world got fuzzier and darker until he was alone with the pain. It was so horrifyingly vivid. There were splashes of light, and he remembered his throat burning, and a stitched-up line under his ribs that hadn't been there before, and Molly telling him not to throw up because electrolytes were vital components to recovery from dehydration...Then more blackness, and more screaming, and more _pain_.

.

.

.

/

Sherlock woke gradually at first, and then with an unpleasant jolt.

A flash of agony snapped him fully back to consciousness and his senses seemed to spark and short out like he'd blown a fuse. It left him panting.

Everything hurt.

He didn't open his eyes. Instead he tried to relax, and took a shaky breath.

Good lord, he smelled like a homeless person.

Perhaps his body was once again attempting to find an escape from reality, or perhaps the memory was simply vivid enough that the right trigger scent could set off an instantaneous flashback: for a moment, he left Molly's kitchen.

Stars winked to life behind his eyelids and instead of linoleum tile beneath his back there was hard-packed dirt and dried leaves…

/

_He can't move. He feels nauseous. The sensation had been wonderful at first, but now he can't feel his fingers and his head hurts and something is very, very wrong._

_Warped voices shout at him and the glare of a torch-light in his eyes makes him wail in agony. They find him - pale and shaking, semi-conscious, laying in a pool of cold sweat and vomit. He has no idea where he is or how he'd got there._

_The next thing he knows, he's in a hospital bed with IV needles in his arms…But that's funny, isn't it, because wasn't it the needles that had gotten him into this mess in the first place?…_

_The first time he bothers to look around, Mycroft is sitting next to the bed, in a boring grey chair, wearing a boring grey suit, with the most terrifying expression on his face that Sherlock has ever seen. It is outrage and disappointment and disgust and…fear. The fear is the unsettling part; all the other ones he's used to, but not that._

_That day, the one that followed the overdose, is the only time Sherlock has ever seen his brother too angry to speak._

_He makes up for it, of course, in the days that follow. Shouting and lecturing him for hours on end, while the doctors take tests and hook him up to IV drips and force him to breathe every few hours into an annoying plastic contraption which measures lung capacity. His brother is furious, and it is almost enough to make Sherlock forget that for at least a moment, Mycroft had shown true brotherly concern for his safety..._

/

Nowadays they didn't talk about that time if they could help it. The overdose had been probably the lowest moment in Sherlock's life. Though, going over the past few weeks, he suspected that the list was in need of a few revisions.

/

The entire memory went by in a flash, and he was back once more, with the pain.


	11. Small Mercies: Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO IT BEGINS. Yay for another long chapter! This was quite fun to write, to be honest. It ended up having more moments of humor in it than I'd anticipated. Molly just kept snarking at me, bless her. Sorry to anyone who's reeling from the mood whiplash!
> 
> Also, just so you know, we are nearing the end of the ER-type grittiness. It's really hard to keep that up when you're trying to be realistic...
> 
> Chapter Warnings: hints of past drug use, reference to past non-con, blood (not particularly graphic), and nudity (in, like, the least graphic, LEAST sexual way possible...)
> 
> Disclaimer: Sherlock: A Study in NOT MINE.

/

The awful, aching hurt refused to relent. Sherlock stifled the overwhelming urge to moan piteously. His whole body felt rather like it had been run through a meat grinder.

He finally opened his eyes. The fluorescent kitchen lights beating down on him were blindingly bright, and he was quickly struck by the vivid and horrifying sensation of deja vu. The feeling terrified him for a moment. He almost felt the need to be sick.

But no. This time there were no drugs. Molly was fine. And he...he...

He'd tried to kill himself. Wonderful. Seeing as he was decidedly _not_ dead, at least for the moment, Molly must have performed some minor miracle of impromptu epidermal patchwork. He blinked several times until the burning sensation in his retinas stopped and his vision wasn't so blurry.

It took him a moment to get his bearings. He was laying down. Molly's kitchen. Right.

As his eyes adjusted to the brightness, he could make out subtler beams of hazy yellow light peeking through the window. The time must be going on six o'clock in the morning.

His feet were propped up on something soft. As was his head. He looked to his left, which was difficult, since his neck was incredibly stiff, and found himself staring at the hem of Molly's pajama shirt. Oh.

His head was in her lap. She'd fallen asleep, with one hand still in his hair. The soft morning light gave her skin what he felt was an appropriately angelic glow. But perhaps that was just the delirium talking...

He squinted curiously. Molly's eyes were red and puffy. She had been crying.

Not because of him, he hoped. He couldn't stand the thought of her crying over him, like spilled milk. The milk was infinitely more deserving.

And anyways, he'd already made her cry. The guilt made his chest contract painfully.

As he watched, she blinked her eyes blearily and yawned, squinting at the light shining through the window.

"Bloody hell. Is it morning already?"

She looked down and saw Sherlock staring back up at her. His blue eyes were bloodshot but remarkably clear.

"Oh, how are you doing? Feel alright?"

He shifted weakly, rediscovering the gash in his stomach, and the bruises around his neck, and the broken rib, and the sizable lump on the back of his head.

"I'm not sure...that I'd go that far..."

He fell silent, attempting to come up with a more adequate descriptor.

"I'm not dead," he finally settled on.

"Yes," Molly agreed. "That's good."

Sherlock was increasingly, keenly aware that he was completely filthy - caked with grime and sweat and dried blood. He decided to amend his previous opinion; he smelled like a crime scene. A day-old double-homicide. His body tensed and he attempted to lay as still as possible, skin crawling with disgust.

Molly rubbed her eyes, to wake herself up more thoroughly. She looked him up and down, taking in his less-than-ideal state.

"Would you maybe...like to get cleaned up?"

Sherlock didn't think he'd ever heard a more welcome proposition. He nodded.

"That would be," he muttered hoarsely, "an extraordinary improvement upon the present circumstances..."

Molly had to admire the tenacity of his loquaciousness, particularly after he'd been laying nearly dead on her floor for the past four hours.

"Can you stand?" That was the question she was most concerned about.

"I think so."

"Good," she said again, lifting his head from her lap. "Now, give me a moment. I can't feel my legs."

It took nearly three whole minutes, and good deal of creative maneuvering, but eventually he was standing, with one hand clutching the table and his other arm around Molly's shoulders.

The bathroom was just down the hallway, but at the present moment, to Sherlock, it felt like a daunting distance. It was possible that he'd slightly over-estimated his ability to function, due to the tempting prospect of soap and warm water. The simple act of lifting himself off the floor had taken considerable effort, and he was already exhausted before they'd taken a single step.

Molly helped him limp forward for about half a meter, and then he stopped abruptly.

"Hang on..."

He toed off the trainers he'd been wearing, as well as his socks, with some difficulty, and stepped gingerly onto a clean section of the floor tiles.

"Didn't want to track blood on your carpet."

"That's...thoughtful of you..." She decided not to mention the fact that she herself had been running around the flat with bloody feet, so it wouldn't make much difference. He attempted to return her smile, but it was immediately overtaken by a wince as an acute pang shot through his right side, courtesy of the broken rib.

She heard his breath hiss sharply through his teeth and looked up in concern.

"Do you need to rest?"

 _How_ she could ask that question without a trace of impatience, after just having spent three minutes helping him off the floor, was beyond him. He supposed she deserved some type of award. But then, if he tried to list everything she'd done or put up with in the past five weeks that deserved an award, he'd be standing here for the rest of the month. And that would do no good to anyone.

So, even though his body would have welcomed a moment of recovery, he gritted his teeth and shook his head.

"Okay then..."

After ten more minutes, which consisted intermittently of dogged limping and catching his breath while leaning against the wall, they made it to the bathroom threshold, and Sherlock sagged against the door-frame in exhaustion.

"Keep going," Molly urged him. "Nearly there."

She looked up at him worriedly. Sherlock felt in danger of passing out. His movements had become increasingly lethargic and uncoordinated, due to the combination of exhaustion and sleep deprivation, the latter of which had, inconveniently, finally decided to catch up with him. Laying for three hours in a pained, semi-conscious daze was hardly going to make up for the previous seventy-two he'd spent in a nearly constant state of sleepless agitation.

"I don't know if..." He had no idea how he was supposed to be able to take a bath when he could hardly see straight.

"None of that now," Molly said quickly, straining to lift him off the door-frame. She could feel him going under, and she desperately needed him to stay alert. They were too close to quit.

" _Come_ on."

He shuffled forward slowly, now barely conscious. She had a feeling he that he wouldn't be able to balance on the side of the bathtub, so she kicked down the toilet seat with her foot and helped him sit down.

"I might be able to save your jacket," she told him. "Though I don't know about the rest of it."

"Hm," he said. His usual eloquence had finally deteriorated to a more utilitarian dialect. She was only surprised that it had taken this long, given the circumstances.

"Okay, now just try to…sit up straight…"

She pushed the jacket off his shoulders and tugged down the sleeves, first left, then right, trying not to aggravate the broken rib.

She held up the coat to assess the damage. It was filthy - scraped up in spots, covered in mud and gravel and a bit of blood, mostly inside near the right-hand pocket and around the collar, where it had dripped down his neck. All things considered, it was still cleaner than the rest of his clothes. Though it smelled funny, she noticed, sniffing tentatively. Like garbage.

"Don't go anywhere," she told him, unnecessarily.

She found a plastic rubbish bag under the sink in the kitchen, and put the dirty coat inside to take to the laundromat later, along with the pillow and blankets she'd used to prop up his feet. She also took the opportunity to dig up a pair of rubber gloves, an old rag, and a bottle of Clorox surface cleaner, and scrubbed the linoleum tile floor within an inch of its life, removing every trace of stain, until she felt slightly lightheaded from the overpowering smell of bleach. She threw away the rag, put the gloves in the sink, then paused for a moment, before grabbing a large plastic cup out of the cupboard and heading back into the bathroom.

The sight she found there was equal parts endearing and worrisome. Sherlock appeared to have passed out again. He'd tipped sideways and was leaning against the bathroom counter. Molly paused at the threshold and rested against the doorway for a moment, just looking at him. Skin pale, slightly grey-tinged, eyes rimmed with red, hair and forehead matted with dried blood. His ruined shirt hung open, falling off one shoulder, revealing the cuts and bruises on his neck and torso. Residual blood was still leaking from the sutured incision and the gash from the switchblade. His arms and legs were limp and his mouth hung open slackly.

Molly yawned and rubbed her eyes. It was awfully tempting to leave him there; he looked peaceful enough. But it couldn't be comfortable being stuck in those filthy clothes. And she didn't want any of the cuts to get infected. The sooner he got cleaned up, the better.

"Sherlock."

"Uh?-" His eyes snapped open, and he tried to sit up, wincing at the sudden movement. Not passed out, then. He'd just nodded off.

"Here, come on."

She set the plastic cup down next to the sink, and then grasped his shoulders and pushed him more or less upright.

She undid the cuffs on his sleeves, and the unbuttoned shirt slid off easily.

While she folded it loosely and tossed it aside, he reached for the zip on his trousers before she had the chance, apparently determined to undo it himself. He still needed her help, though, to sit up so he could push the battered garment down to his knees. He watched her silently as she sat down in front of him to tug the trouser legs over his feet, leaving him in nothing but rumpled, bloodstained purple silk boxer shorts.

His eyes flicked towards the door, almost unconsciously, but when he noticed that she'd noticed him do it he glanced at her questioningly.

She raised her eyebrows.

 _"Oh_ , no. No, I'm not going anywhere. The last thing I need is for you to pass out by yourself and…break another rib or something."

His pale eyes shifted uncomfortably. She got the impression that if he'd had any extra blood to blush with, his cheeks would be burning in humiliation.

"I don't think..." he started tentatively, "I...don't really want you to see me like - "

"I _hope_ ," she interrupted sharply, "you're not trying to tell me you're feeling _modest_."

He winced. Guilty as charged.

She couldn't believe him. The very _nerve_!

" _Sherlock_ ," she said testily, "I get paid to _dissect_ naked people on a weekly basis."

"Well, I - I just -"

"And furthermore, I _imagine_ ," she went on, with escalating impatience, "that that argument would work better on someone you haven't _raped_."

 _That_ shut him up.

His face went stark white. It was the first time the "r"-word had come up out loud, and it hung unpleasantly in the air between them. Molly flushed slightly, but she pursed her lips in determination, refusing to be sorry. There was a long moment of uncomfortable silence.

When she looked up, she was surprised to see Sherlock staring at her miserably.

"Why are you doing this?" he whispered.

She gazed at him in puzzled confusion.

"Why am I doing what?"

He gestured vaguely.

"This. Everything."

He couldn't be serious. Wasn't it obvious?

Still, Molly didn't answer right away.

"You need help," she said finally. "So I'm helping you. That's what people do."

He looked at her strangely, as though she'd spoken some sort of foreign language.

"No…" he said quietly. "It's not. Not everyone…"

"Well, it's what _I_ do," she insisted firmly.

" _Why_?"

He didn't understand.

How could he not understand?

Molly blinked back the frustrated tears that were threatening to spill out of her eyes. She was so sick of this. Of all of it. She was exhausted and her nerves were all but frayed and they were both just so bloody _miserable_. She couldn't stand it for another _second_.

Instead of answering, she gave him a hard look.

"Sorry, did you _want_ to go on smelling like filth and blood? Because I think that's pushing it, even for you."

His shoulders slumped in resignation.

"No…" he admitted meekly. "I'd…I'd prefer to remedy the situation."

She pursed her lips wryly.

"See, now, I suspected as much."

He stared at her curiously.

"Was that...meant to be a joke?"

She went over to him and lifted his right arm over her shoulders.

"Humor is the best medicine...And, failing that, it's a pretty decent distraction," she recited. "My dad said that. I think he added the last part."

"Oh," Sherlock responded.

" _You_ ought to know - you've got sarcasm down to an art…"

"Have I?" he muttered weakly.

"…or would that be 'down to a science'?"

She glanced at him for confirmation, and noticed that he didn't appear to have heard her. He'd gone a bit grey, actually.

"Oh…" she said quietly, "Does it hurt?"

The answer was plain on his face. He squeezed his eyes shut, and she could feel him trembling slightly.

"I could probably nick some morphine from Bart's later," she said.

To her surprise, his eyes went wide with panic.

"No!"

He winced, and shook his head.

"No- no. No…drugs…"

"Okay," she reassured him. "No drugs."

Sherlock stared straight ahead, his gaze hardening resolutely. He was accepting a sentence - resigning himself to a just punishment for a crime, and whatever pain that entailed, he'd take it without complaint.

"Not giving up that dignity without a fight, are we?" Molly noted.

His mouth twitched.

"Dignity's got nothing to do with it." His voice was shaky but determined.

She half-smiled at him, and wrapped her left arm around his waist.

"On three, alright?"

He nodded, bracing his arm against the sink.

"Okay...one-two- _three_ \- "

He leaned on her heavily and managed to push himself to a more or less standing position. Then, panting slightly, he straightened up the rest of the way without her help.

Molly craned her neck.

"How's the weather up there?"

Sherlock's head was spinning.

"It's...it's- _oh_ -"

He stumbled and had to catch himself on her shoulders. Molly winced.

"Ow - okay…" She figured she should have seen that coming. "...Guess it'll take a second for the blood to get all the way to your head."

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" he mumbled.

"No…You're just sort of heavy. I'm okay."

"I'm sorry…" he said.

She laughed faintly.

"What, for being heavy? Or for being roughly as tall as a small giraffe?"

The lighthearted jab failed to inspire a response. His eyes were dark and tired.

"For…a lot of things."

She looked over at him. There would be a moment for that, she knew. But she was equally certain that it wasn't now.

"What's it they say?…" she asked, straining slightly to help him straighten up again, more slowly this time. "'Keep calm and carry on.'"

"That's the one," he sighed.

"Good. Now drop your pants."

"Hm," he said shortly, but he didn't bother to object.

He hooked his thumb under the waistband and she used her free hand to tug down from the other side, and once the dried blood unstuck from his skin the stained silk boxers slid down and pooled around his ankles.

"Shame about those," she said sympathetically. "They look like they cost a fortune."

He nodded mournfully.

"Right," she reminded him. "Bath."

"Right..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *A brief moment of silence for Sherlock's dignity. Followed by a moment of dignified silence for Sherlock's briefs.*


	12. Small Mercies: Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow - this was one of the hardest parts for me to finish so far. Had it half done for ages, but it just would. not. click.  
> I set a deadline for myself, and I think that helped. (Just barely got it in on time, but still...)
> 
> Chapter Warnings: blood, dark themes
> 
> Not Mine.
> 
> Enjoy :)

/

Sherlock had finally resigned himself to the fact that he'd quite nearly expended the very last of his energy. He could barely stand by himself, his whole body ached, there was dried blood in his hair, he smelled like muck and rubbish, and now he was naked as well and there was nothing left to hide and to be entirely honest he felt just about ready to give up. He didn't think he'd ever so vehemently wished to drop into a coma. Molly supported him as best she could as he kicked the boxer shorts off his feet and clambered awkwardly over the side of the tub, not that he _cared_ how he looked, because really what did it matter at this point? He managed to sit down without incident, with her help, and then finally the little ordeal was over. He felt pathetically accomplished for a brief moment, and then just pathetic.

Molly helped him without saying anything and without staring any more than necessary, which he had sense enough to be thankful for, despite the nagging feeling that he didn't deserve her respect.

She sat back and wiped her forehead on her sleeve. Her face was shining with sweat, and framed by a few limp strands of hair which had escaped from her loose ponytail. But somehow, she seemed hardly aware of her own obvious exhaustion.

"Alright?"

He nodded mutely. He was sitting with his back to the tap, his shoulders slumped forward and his knees drawn up halfway to his chest, as his legs were too long for her modest bathtub. Molly noted that he still looked too pale and his eyes were glazed over in pain. He was also shivering. His body didn't even have enough energy left to heat itself. All-in-all, she assessed, he looked utterly wretched.

"I'll turn the tap on," she said, pushing her pajama sleeves up above her elbows. "That'll help."

His teeth chattered in response. He swayed slightly.

"Don't drop off on me, now," she chastised him gently, as the tap gurgled and spluttered to life - she left the plug open, so that the blood could wash down the drain.

"Sherlock?"

"Hm."

"Okay - just checking," she said, trying to make her voice sound more cheery and reassuring than she felt. He was still very much in a bad way.

After making sure that everything she needed was within arm's reach - soap, shampoo, a comb, a small pile of folded flannels - she checked the water temperature with her hand. Mildly warm but not hot.

"That ought to be good…"

She turned around and grabbed the plastic cup from the tiny bathroom counter. It was one of those souvenirs they sold at football games that she'd gotten ages ago; the logo had peeled off almost entirely after dozens of runs through the dishwasher.

Sherlock shivered weakly. His lips and fingernails were turning blue.

"Here, then…" Molly said. She reached across the front of his chest and laid her hand gently on his opposite shoulder, so that her arm was braced just under his collarbone. He shuddered slightly at her touch. His skin felt ice cold. He let her pull him upright, giving about as much resistance as a rag doll.

"Now, _this_ …" she said, filling the plastic container under the tap, "should feel a whole lot better..."

She tipped the cup up slowly above the base of his neck, so that the warm water spilled onto his shoulders and down his back.

He exhaled sharply.

"Sorry -" she said quickly. "Is it too hot?"

It surprised her to hear a choked sound escape his throat, halfway between a sob and a whimper.

"…no…" he said, in a small voice. His shoulders were still trembling, but she felt his body relax, and he let out a soft breath, resting more heavily against her arm.

"Okay..." she whispered, "That's good, then..."

Molly felt the strangely urgent need to keep her voice calm, as if she was talking to an injured stray dog; as if speaking louder might startle him, and break the odd trance of safety.

She considered him silently and mused to herself how very easy - _laughably_ easy - it would be, just now, to hurt him. Not only physically (though that, too, was hardly a stretch). Only that - if she had the faintest inclination - with a few cruel words she could probably, _literally_ , make him die of humiliation. It was a power she was more than a little uncomfortable with, no less because everything he'd done to her recently (or ever), might - to anyone else - qualify as a justifiable reason to abuse it against him.  
If she, at just this moment, plugged the drain and told Sherlock that he was a horrible, evil person and that he ought to drown himself in her bathtub, he might _actually_ do it.  
The very thought made her feel nauseous.

No matter what had passed between them...Whatever their odd, dysfunctional relationship currently was (not that she had a clue herself), she simply couldn't bear the idea of kicking him while he was down.

She continued pouring warm water over his shoulders, and when he moaned and closed his eyes, dropping his head down towards his chest and the crook of her arm, she stifled the incongruous impulse she had to giggle nervously. She wasn't going to do that to him. This was quite possibly the _only_ time, she marveled, that he'd ever been completely stripped down in front of another person, both literally and metaphorically. He wasn't trying to hide, or deflect, or manipulate her; there was not a trace of pretension... He'd already relinquished fairly everything - his material possessions, his life, his identity; if she broke his trust as well, she wasn't sure there would be anything left of him.

She didn't laugh.

The tiny bathroom warmed up quickly, as she'd closed the door to keep in the heat. She could soon see the edges of the mirror beginning to fog up.

The change in temperature seemed to do him good; his breathing slowed and deepened and he stopped shivering. She could feel his pulse returning to a more normal tempo.

She reached for the soft flannel, and soaked it with warm water under the tap. Then she began to wipe the blood from the back of his neck where it had dripped down from his head to pool under his shirt collar. His eyes fluttered open and he lifted his head slightly.

"Oh…"

She blinked, startled out of her reverie.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I'll ruin your washcloth," he said deliriously. He sounded so sincerely heartbroken by the idea, that she was forced to swallow a sudden lump which had risen to her throat before making a reassuring reply.

"Don't worry about it. I've got loads of these."

After she'd used the little square cloth to clean the residual blood from his back and between his shoulder blades, she brushed his hair away from the nape of his neck to get a better look at the bruising she'd noticed there before. In addition to several long, thin bruises encircling his throat like an incomplete necklace, there were four small crescent-shaped indents in a line down the side of his neck that she hadn't seen upon first inspection; a few of them had broken the skin. She leaned forward slightly - sure enough, there were identical marks on the other side. Molly touched one of the small cuts lightly, her eyes widening as she realized what they were.

"Fingernails," supplied Sherlock listlessly.

She nodded, speechless. The pattern of bruises was consistent with a vicious stranglehold. She checked under his chin, out of curiosity, and found two more crescent-shaped cuts on either side of his windpipe, from what could have only been someone digging their thumbnails into his throat.

She washed the cuts well with soap and water, making a mental note to bandage them properly later, so they wouldn't get infected.

Actually, taking into account the whole rest of his body, she might end up going through a whole box of plasters. She sighed, then squeezed out the washcloth under the running tap to continue working.

The gash in his forehead had bled for a long time before finally letting up. The darkening trail ran down the side of his face and all the way to the hollow of his throat. Blood had also dripped from his chin onto his chest, and some of it had soaked through his thin shirt. There was more blood under his nose, and from a cut on his lip. His hands were covered in it, up to the wrists. Molly meticulously cleansed his face, shoulders, arms, and torso of the sticky red grime, as her bar of ivory soap steadily dwindled into a pink, gelatinous blob. Often, she'd wash away the blood only to reveal mottled bruises marring his pale skin.

"My mum used to give me baths like this," she chatted idly while she worked, figuring that talking might help keep them both awake. "'Course, it works better when you're little…"

No response.

"Did your mum ever do this for you?"

"Did…what?…"

"Did your mum ever give you baths when you were a kid?"

He shook his head slowly.

"We had a nanny…"

"Oh."

Well, that was hardly surprising.

"I don't think I've taken a bath since I was nine," he said, after a short pause.

She smiled lightly, pleased to hear him speaking in a complete sentence.

"What, not once?"

He frowned.

"There was one time…" he remembered. "…It was for a case. Poisoned bath salts were involved…"

"Oh? Not the old 'electrocution-via-curling-iron'?" she joked.

"No, no…the curling iron murderer was another affair entirely..."

He yawned loudly.

"It was _blindingly_ obvious."

"Only to you, I'm sure," Molly assured him. "You are brilliant."

He blinked blearily.

"That's what John said…He's hopelessly uninventive with adjectives…"

Molly couldn't help smiling at his assessment.

"Right, could you maybe lift your arm?" she asked. "I want to get a look at that rib."

"You've seen him," Sherlock said suddenly, and Molly's hands paused in surprise. It wasn't a question, and he was clearly inviting her to elaborate.

"Oh?" She felt a sinking feeling in her stomach.

"I know you have." He turned his head to look at her, desperately seeking some form of reassurance. "Is...Is he...?" The question was halting, as though he feared the answer.

For what seemed like the hundredth time that night, Molly felt tears welling up in her eyes.

"Oh, Sherlock...he's..."

She stopped to think about all the times she'd seen John since the 'incident.' He was heartbroken, obviously. His eyes had often looked tired before, but now they seemed to have lost some of their vitality. But people recovered from that all the time, didn't they? Not that it was fair...It was never fair. And it would take a long time, and then you were never quite the same. Still, she was more worried about how John would react when he found out Sherlock _wasn't_ dead. Because _that_ was not something that happened every day. So really, how could she possibly answer?...

Her best bet, she supposed, would be to use reason; if Sherlock responded to anything, it was logic.

"He's got lots of people to look out for him," she said. "Like Mike Stamford...and the Detective Inspector...and your landlady. Oh, what's her name?..."

"Mrs. Hudson."

"Yes, that's right. She's a dear; I don't know how she puts up with the two of you."

Sherlock noticed but didn't comment on Molly's stubborn use of the present tense. He drew a small amount of childish comfort from the fact that they could still pretend nothing had changed.

"What about his sister?"

"I don't know. I'm sure she's stopped by." She hesitated for a moment.

"I don't think he's going to do anything drastic, Sherlock. Really. He wouldn't want to hurt any of them."

Sherlock nodded silently in agreement. John had always been so much more considerate of other people's feelings. He'd never thought there would be a day when he'd be unspeakably grateful for it.

Molly wished she had more to tell him - that she'd paid more attention to John instead of worrying whether he suspected anything. Still, certain things had been obvious, even to her...

"He misses you," she said truthfully.

Sherlock didn't say anything; only stared determinedly at his knees.

"I know you must miss him too..."

He could feel his throat constricting, and he blinked rapidly. He really did miss John. He missed all of them. A good deal more than he'd care to admit.

Molly stopped herself just short of sharing sympathetic words to comfort him. She knew how much he hated sympathy.

Instead she brushed her fingers over his palm soothingly, rubbing away the last traces of dirt and blood.

He eventually allowed her to take a look at his right side, just as she had asked before he'd abruptly changed the subject. The tissue surrounding the broken rib was bruised and swollen. Sherlock's right arm had been covering the full extent of the damage, but now Molly saw that the bruising had expanded considerably to cover an area almost wider than her outspread hand. The bone itself was a small but noticeable lump under his skin, that shifted when he twisted his torso the wrong way or even breathed to hard. She looked closely at the various shades of blotchy purple and green and indigo, but barely dared to even glance the tissue with her fingertips. She hoped it would heal on its own, because such an injury was far beyond her ability or professional authority to treat. There wasn't much, either, that she could do about the gash or the stitched incision under his ribs, so she washed around the wounds as best she could without actually touching them.

His hair was still filthy and matted. Since by this point her first washcloth had been basically expended, and her feet were starting to tingle unpleasantly, Molly decided to tackle that next. She stretched out her legs, gasping at the pins-and-needles sensation, and pulled herself up to sit on the side of the tub; even sitting down and hunched over, Sherlock was still too tall for her to wash his hair while she was kneeling on the floor.

She reached for the 2-in-1unscented shampoo-conditioner and clicked the cap open. This was something she'd bought for him especially when he'd moved into her flat, since he flatly refused to use any of her hair products, all of which smelled either like garden flowers or tropical fruit.

"Okay, chin up," she ordered. "I'm doing your hair."

The shampoo turned from creamy white to an unappealing pink as she worked it in, just like the ivory soap - becoming tainted as it mixed with his blood. Molly kept one of her hands on Sherlock's forehead to keep the oddly-colored foam from dripping into his eyes. He winced, hissing in a breath through his teeth, when she accidentally touched the raised bump on the back of his skull.

"Oh - I'm so sorry!"

Head wound. Right. She did her best to avoid that area.

It was a tedious process, since a lot of the blood had dried, and some of the knots resisted her comb, and she had to be extra cautious not to tear the hair out of his scalp.

At this point, Molly noticed, Sherlock was going nearly cross-eyed from exhaustion. His eyelids kept closing of their own volition.

She could feel herself growing more and more tired, and she had yet to clean the blood from his legs and feet.

"Listen, you might help me out here," she reminded him. She took a clean washcloth off the small pile and set it on his knee. Then she picked up a new bar of soap and pressed it into his hand, and he stared at it blankly for a good five seconds as though he'd forgotten how to use one.

"Sherlock."

She gave him a cross look, which he didn't catch, because he was still looking at the bar of soap in his right palm as though he'd never seen anything like it.

"Sherlock, it's fine if you can't; I can just do it for you. But -"

" _Ssl'dmmselff_." His head jerked up.

She blinked.

"Come again?"

"I said I'll do it myself." He blinked and shook his head like he was clearing a fog from his mind. "I'm awake."

Molly didn't miss the tiny note of defensiveness. After a long moment of silence, in which he couldn't seem to quite bring himself to actually act on his pronouncement, she lowered her voice to talk to him.

"Um...It's okay, you know. You don't have to feel embarrassed."

He gritted his teeth but didn't say anything, and she took it to mean that she'd interpreted is reaction correctly.

"You know...I know how you feel. Well - I mean - _I_ don't, exactly. But, my dad, when he was..." She cast around, unsure of exactly how to talk about it.

"In the last year, I guess...He needed...help. With everything like this. He hated it at first. It was really hard on him. On everyone, actually. But then...eventually, he just got a sort of sense of humor about the whole thing." She pulled a face, frustrated that she couldn't find the right words. "Er, that didn't -"

Then, she sighed.

"Look, I just mean, you're not the only person in the world who's had to put up with this, and you won't be the last."

There. That was fair enough.

Sherlock chewed the inside of his lip thoughtfully.

"I see that that's one more similarity I seem to share with your father," he observed softly, after a moment. "We should be keeping a tally. What's it been so far?...Sad, sarcastic...and dead...And now..."

"Incapacitated?" Molly offered helpfully.

"Mm."

"Well...at least it's only temporary."

There wasn't really anything to add to that.

She went back to washing his hair. He shuffled his feet weakly, but still couldn't quite seem to will his arms to move.

Molly sighed again. Then, a thought occurred to her that actually made her grin.

"Hang on - this might help."

She took the plastic cup she'd been using, and filled it with cold water from the bathroom sink. Then she turned back around and splashed it into Sherlock's face.

" _Ahh_ \- !"

He spluttered and gave his head a shake, blinking the water out of his eyes.

With his hair dripping and his shocked expression, he so well resembled the stray dog she'd compared him to earlier that she bit her lip to keep from smiling.

It worked, though. The shock from the cold water seemed to inspire a second wind, and in the end he didn't need much more of her assistance. It helped that underneath all the blood that had gushed from the stab wound, his legs were, miraculously, mostly unharmed. That is, they were riddled with minor bruises, but there wasn't much they could do about that with a flannel. His knees were lightly scraped, and there was one other place where skin had broken, in the middle of a particularly nasty-looking bruise on his shin, from what she suspected must have been a well-aimed kick.

It took a minute, also, to scrub away the ring of dried blood that had congealed around his right ankle, after having dripped down his leg from the switchblade-sized gash in his abdomen. But finally, all the old blood was gone. And Molly went back to his hair, teasing out the last remnants of grime and conditioner.

Sherlock let his head loll forward again, resting his chin in the crook of her arm.

The sound of the tap running in the background had a hypnotic effect. Molly's hand was petting the back of his neck again; her fingers trailed up and down repetitively. It felt nice. How long had it been since he'd slept properly?...Three days, wasn't it, by now?...He could hardly remember...

All his limbs felt unusually heavy. He couldn't keep his eyelids open...

Molly smoothed down his hair a final time, absently enjoying the feeling of running her fingers through it. She felt him go limp in her arms and realized he must have fallen asleep. She shook his shoulder gently and he opened his eyes, with some reluctance.

"Sherlock, you can't sleep in my bathtub. You'll catch a chill."

Sherlock couldn't quite care less. Only after the warning that she'd resort to turning on the shower head was he finally persuaded to sit up and towel off. (Molly's shower had notoriously awful water pressure.)

Molly dried his hair for him, and giggled a bit when it stood all on end like he'd just rolled out of bed, before smoothing it down to something more acceptable. (Not that he was overly fussed, because it was just his _hair_ , for goodness' sake, and being naked tended to put those sorts of things into perspective.) Then she draped the towel over his shoulders and went to go find him some comfortable, blood-free clothes.

He managed not to fall asleep again, in the two minutes while she was away, but it was increasingly difficult - now that his skin felt pleasantly tingly, and it had been more or less established that he was not, in fact, going to keel over dead. (Not that he wasn't about to keel over anyways, but at least the mortality aspect wasn't in question.)

Molly returned with a t-shirt and a pair of flannel pajama bottoms. Helped him balance on the side of the bathtub while he put _on_ the t-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms. Helped him stand up without suddenly depleting the flow of blood to his head. Helped him limp out of the cramped bathroom and back down the hall. Molly, who didn't jeer and laugh at him for being vulnerable. ( _Amazing, saintly_ ) Molly, who had more patience than anyone he'd ever known in his life - so much, it must fill a reservoir the size of an ocean. ( _Sweet, angelic_ ) Molly, who'd given him so many things he didn't remotely deserve that he felt slightly sick at the thought of even _beginning_ to try to pay her back.

Fortunately, the thought wasn't able to bother him for very long, because he was out like a light as soon as his head hit the pillow. Molly closed the shades in the guest room to keep out the growing daylight, making a mental note that she'd need to call in sick to Bart's before going to sleep herself. She pulled the top-sheet and the duvet over Sherlock's shoulders, and could have sworn, when she turned to go, that he muttered something which sounded a lot like "epitome of perfection." But honestly, she'd probably imagined it...


	13. Sorrows Can Swim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE! It's a John chapter! And, as a special treat, we also get to meet the infamous Harriet "Harry" Watson. It was quite fun to flesh out a character that's only been hinted at in the BBC canon.   
> I'm also rather pleased with certain sections of the dialogue in this part...
> 
> CHAPTER WARNING: Mostly, booze. Booze used in not-so-healthy ways. And consequently, there's also quite a bit of colorful language. However, the context here is not threatening/derogatory; Drunk!John just has quite the potty-mouth. Lastly, I always tend to write 'dark subject matter', but in this chapter it does get delved into, concerning depression and suicidal tendencies.
> 
> The characters do not belong to me.  
> I'm simply attempting to navigate them through this bizarre and angst-filled journey to fix the fallout from my little wayward plot-bunny...
> 
> [On an entirely unrelated note: Happy Olympics, people!]

/

From the moment John woke up, he knew it wasn't going to be a good day.

It was too quiet in the flat.

If he'd been in the mood for irony, he would have found it extremely ironic that, just a few weeks ago, he'd have gladly paid good money for a bit of peace and quiet at 8 o'clock in the morning. Now, though, the silence felt unnatural. Oppressive. It was pushing in around him like a tangible reminder of Sherlock's absence. He sat up and swung his feet to the side of the bed. His head was buzzing unpleasantly with the dual sensations of isolation and claustrophobia.

He picked up his mobile phone from the bedside table, and swore halfheartedly when he saw that the battery was dead. It was the second time that week he'd let it run out of power; he suspected it had something to do with a subconscious desire to avoid sympathy calls. Or all human contact. He plugged it into the wall charger, dressed quickly, and left the flat.

221B hadn't become any easier to live in as the days went on. In fact, if anything, it had gotten worse. If things kept up like this, he'd need to check into a hotel. He'd almost done so already, several times, when the stillness had felt too oppressive to bear for another second. But he'd always managed to resist the temptation. He didn't have the money, for one thing.

And of course, living in a hotel meant he'd be right back where he started…

/

The morgue attendant was someone he didn't know. A peppy blonde girl who smiled at him when he came in. He wondered for a moment how Bart's managed to hire such happy-looking people for such a dismal job.

"Hello, there," she said. "Can I help you?"

"Er - yes. I'm looking for Molly Hooper."

"Oh, right! I'm sorry - she actually called in sick this morning."

John looked at her in surprise.

"She called in?"

"Yeah, said she had the flu or something. I'm filling in."

"Oh, I see…" He wasn't quite sure what to make of the information.

"Must've caught a nasty sort of bug, poor dear," the girl continued conversationally. "She hardly ever misses work."

"Right, well, thank you."

He turned to go. But as he headed towards the door, she called after him.

"Sorry, are you a relative?" she asked, taking in his casual attire. "Of one of the deceased, I mean," she clarified. "Did you want to see one of her reports?"

He turned, about to say no. But then he hesitated.

"Um…actually…"

He cleared his throat.

Oh God. It was a terrible idea.

_Don't ask. Don't ask. Don't ask._

"Could you...pull out the autopsy report for Sherlock Holmes?"

_Shit._

"Oh -" the attendant blinked at him in surprise. "Sherlock Holmes? Wasn't he the detective?"

"Yes…" John's eyes darted around the room uncomfortably. He immediately regretted the words, but as soon as he'd said them, a thrill of wild hope had flared up his chest that made his heart pound.

"Would've been about a month ago…"

"I'd need to see proof of relation," she said. "Are you a…cousin?…"

"Er…"

"Significant Other?…" she ventured.

Well, that was true enough, John thought dryly. But the legal system wouldn't exactly see it that way.

"N…um…No," he admitted. "Just…friend. We, uh, lived together."

She shook her head sympathetically.

"Sorry. It's confidential. Relatives only."

"Right. Yes." He knew that. What had he been thinking? "Um, alright. Sorry to have bothered you."

He turned to go, chastising himself internally.

"Sorry I couldn't help," she said, as he walked out the door.

/

So Molly Hooper had phoned in sick. Did that mean she'd taken his advice? Or had something else happened?…

He walked down the hall quickly, feeling flustered. He'd come here to get away from Sherlock - not to go asking after his goddamned autopsy records. Now he could feel the detective's presence following him, and he wanted to get out of Bart's as soon as possible. So, he was hardly paying attention as he rounded a corner and nearly collided head-on with Mike Stamford.

"Woah, there -"

"Sorry - I am so sorry…"

"John!"

John winced internally.

"Fancy runnin' into you here! Have you reconsidered, then?"

Reconsidered? Reconsidered what?

 _Oh, no_ …

The job. He'd totally forgotten.

"Listen, Mike…I am…still thinking about it."

"Still not sure?"

"Er…not really…"

"Well, you should let me know soon! To be honest, I don't know how long I can hold the position open for you."

"Okay, I'll…I appreciate it."

"So what brought you in then?" Mike asked.

"Well, it's…" John started hesitantly. He wasn't sure how much he ought to tell. "Um, personal visit," he said evasively.

"Oh really? Taken a fancy to one of the nurses, is it?" Mike joked.

"No, I was…" He swallowed. "er…asking after Sherlock's autopsy record."

"Oh." Mike frowned slightly, suddenly looking at John in concern.

"You do know all that information -"

"Confidential. Yeah. Yeah, I know." He shook his head apologetically. "I thought maybe…Well actually, I don't know what I was thinking."

Mike gave him an appraising look he wasn't sure he liked. He stood there warily, feeling judged.

"You know what you need? You need to get out. Get out of your head for a bit."

Well, it could have been a worse assessment. He may actually have a point.

"Tell you what," Stamford continued. "I'll call Harry, we can all go out for drinks. On me."

"I, um..."

 _Wait_...

"You have Harry's number?" he asked sharply.

"Ah -" Mike winced slightly, and John got the distinct feeling he'd inadvertently stumbled onto something he wasn't supposed to know. "Yeah; your landlady gave it to me, 'bout a week after, you know..."

"Oh."

 _Well_.

He wasn't sure how to react to this sudden revelation; that his friends and family had been forming a secret John-Watson-Support-Network behind his back. It explained a lot, actually. Like why Mike had even offered him that job in the first place, probably. They all thought his mental health was at risk. 'Poor Johnny going mad from grief - he'll need whatever help he can get.' Did they do weekly conference calls? For _God's_ sake -

 _No_.

No. He fought back the rising anger, locked it safely away. He was going to take this with resignation; they'd only meant well...

Mike clapped him on the shoulder.

"So, what d'you say? We'll meet up later, Harry an' me'll treat you to dinner."

He had to admit, it was tempting. The alcohol, at least.

" _Johnny-boy_ ," Stamford said, half laughing, half serious, "You look like you could use it. How about it, mate, eh?"

Finally, John nodded and even mustered a sort-of smile.

"Fair enough."

/

John spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon wandering aimlessly. He didn't want to stay at Bart's. He _definitely_ didn't want to go back to the silent emptiness of 221B.

He briefly entertained the idea of dropping in on Molly. He'd actually been to her flat once before. (It had been for a case.) He remembered the neighborhood, if not the exact address. But he quickly dismissed it as a bad idea, and probably pointless besides.

Eventually he just circled back to Bart's and waited for Mike to get off work. His phone had certainly long-since finished charging by now, but he couldn't bring himself to go back to the flat to get it. He sat in the lobby and read the newspaper to pass the time. At half-past five, Mike showed up, and they headed outside.

"Harry should show up any minute," he said. "I was just talking to her -"

"OY! Baby John!"

Oh, joy of joys, there she was...

Harriet Watson - better known as "Harry" to her friends - had always been the sort of person that drew attention like a social magnet. She loved people, and in return people tended to love her, so that when she showed up at social gatherings everyone in the vicinity would turn her way to say hello.

As soon as she spied the two men, she bounded up and threw her arms around John, while he stood stiff as a board and tried not to think about the number of passerby being allowed to witness this mortifying and unwarranted display of familial affection.

She finally stepped back and smiled at him, all bright teeth and laugh lines, as if her face didn't know how to do anything else. He knew better, of course, but, when Harry wasn't trapped in one of her low spells, she was the most happy, lighthearted person to be found north of the English Channel.

His older sister's sheer propensity for boisterous cheeriness was something John had never understood. They shared certain family traits - sandy hair and washed-out-blue eyes - and were within an inch of each others' height. (Harry always teased that she was the tall one. Whatever. _He_ couldn't be expected to wear heels.) In personality, though, the Watson siblings were like night and day. She seemed to have inherited his share of boundless energy, which was part of the reason why they sometimes (often, really) got along about as well as oil and water.

"I called you!" she said reprovingly. "Twice. Did you lose your phone?"

John shrugged. "Battery died. It's back at the flat."

Harry rolled her eyes dramatically.

"Why am I not surprised? At least it's a proper excuse, though. I thought you might've been avoiding me."

"What, me? Never," he said sarcastically.

"Mike says you're in need of a good time, baby brother - let's see what we can do!"

It so happened that the only positive (and most likely temporary) result of The Incident was that Harry had redoubled her efforts to stay sober, for John's sake. Which, as much as he resented it, had actually been effective so far. Whether it would last obviously remained to be seen.

"You sure you're alright with this, Harry?" John asked.

She rolled her eyes.

"I've got you two as supervisors, haven't I? Well, Mike anyways." She nudged John with her elbow. "I reckon you can get plastered enough for the both of us. And this way I can watch. It'll be cathartic."

John laughed dryly but didn't contradict her, because at the moment, any possible distraction was a welcome prospect - even one that came in a bottle.

After over a month of insanity, he needed to make the thinking stop, for just one night...

/

It was later, after dinner, and after he'd started losing track of the drinks, that Harry saw fit to definitively declare,

"You, sir, are utterly shit-faced."

"Yep, I think I am..." John agreed. He hiccuped.

"The hell did that happen? Thought it was s'posed t'be the other way 'round..."

"Not tonight, I _told_ you," she bragged. "I'm doing well, thanks."

"Yeah, who'd've guessed, right?"

" _Excuse_ me! I'm just going to pretend that wasn't an insult."

John chuckled and shook his head. He traced a finger around the rim of his drink pensively.

 _Well_ , he found himself thinking, _it had nearly been fun_.

They'd laughed and chatted about nothing in particular, and, alright, it felt good, since Lord knows he hadn't done anything social in ages.  
But 'nearly' wasn't enough. He simply hadn't been able to forget the reason he needed a distraction in the first place. When it had become clear that nothing they said could get him to truly unwind, his friends had readily reverted to Plan B, which seemed to involve buying him enough drinks to drown out his tense mood with copious amounts of alcohol. Not a generally-recommended therapy technique, but hell, it's what _they_ would do.  
John had quickly caught on to their strategy, but his mild annoyance was overridden by the desperate prospect that it might actually work. He went along with it and just kept drinking morosely, letting his thoughts grow increasingly fuzzy around the edges.  
Mike and Harry had eventually stopped worrying; the two of them were currently chatting casually next to him, unaware that he'd dropped out of the conversation some time ago.

In retrospect, John ought to have seen it coming. It took constant energy, keeping himself from being overwhelmed by the despair and the grief. Drinking only made him let down his guard.  
Rather than burying all the painful Sherlock-related thoughts in his head, the alcohol seemed instead to loosen them from his subconscious where they'd been safely lodged and buoy them up to the forefront of his mind, so that now he found himself unable to think of anything else.

Trapped. He was completely trapped. The hopeless realization dropped over him suddenly, and it felt like being doused with tar.

_Fuck it. Fuck all of this._

_Why'd he have to fucking jump? The selfish prick._

_He never got it. Smartest guy I'll ever know and he was a fucking idiot._

"Idiot..."

"Come again?" said Harry, turning towards him.

"Sherlock! Sherlock _fucking_ Holmes. Was an idiot."

John's knuckles whitened around the glass in his hand, as his mixed emotions distilled themselves into something resembling anger.

His throat was burning. Probably just the bloody alcohol. Stuff tasted awful. But then his nose felt pinched, and he couldn't stop blinking, and _dammit_ , he was fucking crying. He avoided looking at Harry and Mike, because they'd either be staring at him like he'd grown another head, or worse, they'd be looking at him with _pity_.

Harry bit the inside of her lip and raised her eyebrows.

"Never would've taken you for a weepy drunk, Baby John."

"G'fuckyerself..." John muttered.

"Yeah, yeah, alright. I'm just takin' the piss. It's my job, as Big Sister."

He looked miserable as ever, despite her attempt to lighten the mood a bit. Consolation had never been Harry's strong suit, but she'd never failed at anything for lack of trying. Evidently she sensed that this wasn't something to be brushed off, and her voice took on a softer tone.

"I've never seen you get all emotional like this. You really cared about him, didn't you?"

She squinted at him, trying to puzzle it out.

"Is that what this is about?" she asked slowly. "Were you two...y'know...?"

John stared at her and didn't say anything.

Even his own sister? Bloody wonderful.

"'Cause, if you were, you ought to know I totally sympathize." She smiled wryly. "Didn't think he'd be your type, though."

"You'd better be joking, Harry," he deadpanned.

"Sorry; _I_ don't know what to think. The papers did a lot of heavy implyin,' is all I'm saying."

"It's a great load of shite," John said. He swallowed thickly. "I fuckin' hate him. Sherlock Holmes is a smarmy git." He sniffed, and took another swig of alcohol without tasting it at all.

"I'd heard as much," Harry responded dryly. Then her posture shifted slightly, and her face grew grave.

"John," she started.

It was her Lecture Voice. Rarely used, and never welcome, as far as John was concerned. He didn't know where she was going with this but he was already wary.

"It's good, I think, you getting this out of your system," Harry said. "I always worried the bloke was completely insane, you know. Maybe all this was for the best."

Oh...was _that_ the way it was, then?

John bristled angrily.

"What the hell d' _you_ know, Harry? You never even met him."

So she believed all the trash in the papers, did she? This was why they'd never seen eye to eye. He was her brother, for God's sake, and she didn't even trust him about his own closest friend.

"John, you've always said yourself he was a bit off. I just think he wasn't an awfully great influence."

"And you're one to talk, about bad influences, are you?"

"Oh, piss off. You know what I meant. It's completely different."

John ground his teeth furiously. She had _no idea_ what she was talking about. He wanted to bite back; to say something shocking, spiteful. Before he could filter the words coming out of his mouth he'd suddenly blurted -

"Did you know I kept my gun, when I came back from Afghanistan?"

"You what?"

Confusion, sharp suspicion. He'd gone there; now there was nothing for it.

John couldn't have stopped himself if he'd wanted to. The words poured out like blood from a wound.

"I snuck it back, and I carried it around for weeks," he said. "Kept it in the hotel room and everything...I didn't have any money. Couldn't get a job. I wasn't _trying_ , really, 'cause everything just started blurring together. And I left it in the drawer in my desk, with a loaded clip, and sometimes, I'd pick it up, a-and -" He shuddered into silence for a moment, dropping his head into his hands, and so he missed the stunned look that Mike and Harry exchanged over his shoulders. The two of them waited on tenterhooks for him to gather himself and continue.

"Sherlock...was..." He tried to find the words. The alcohol didn't help. "It was like..." He scoffed suddenly. "He could've had...I dunno... _antlers_ growing out've his head, and-"

"Now _there's_ a mental picture..."

"Shut it, Harry. I just mean - and I still would've chased him halfway across London after that bloody taxi. I had no idea -"

He'd had no idea how much he'd really needed Sherlock, until it was too late to thank him for it.

"It was like...I finally had something to _do_ , again. Right? And I wasn't stuck in my head all the time, and it was...exciting, I guess. Or something," he ended lamely.

Great, again with the tears. Just a few, filling the corners of his eyes, but he couldn't will them to stop any more than he could his sudden drunken confession.

"He was my best friend," he said quietly. "People assume what they want, but, to hell with them...never mattered anyways...And then he...And now..."

His expression hardened bitterly.

"Then he went an' chucked himself off a sodding building, and I'm right back where I started," he finished.

Mike and Harry, thankfully, didn't say anything smart. Or better, anything at all. Mike bought him another drink and Harry patted him on the back and ruffled his hair a bit like she used to when they were kids.

Vaguely, underneath the haze, John thought he'd probably regret admitting all of that to them later. But for the moment it was satisfying enough that they were finally taking him seriously. He almost wished his therapist had been there as well, to take notes. She would have told him he'd made good progress.

Mike and Harry, neither of whom were trained in grief therapy, kept buying him drinks until the ache in his chest got lost under all the booze.

/

"I'm sorry, okay?" Harry said after a while, when it was late and he was tired and way too hammered to care about the massive hangover he'd undoubtedly be sporting the next morning. "I'm just trying to look out for you, baby brother."

"We all are," Mike added.

John nodded glumly. It made the room wobble precariously.

"Listen, we'll call a cab..."

It took a long moment for the words to sort themselves in his head, but all of a sudden the thought of empty 221B hit him in the gut like a sack of bricks, and John felt like he wanted to be sick.

"No, don't -"

"Sorry?"  
"Don' wanna go back..." he muttered into his drink.

"What?"

"I can't," he clarified. "Jussst...nn...not right now...Can'go back there..." The words slipped around on his tongue, but they seemed to get the message.

"Johnny, you've got to pull yourself together," Harry chided him. "I'm going out of town tomorrow morning. Mike's got a wife and kids, he can't take you either."

John just kept shaking his head, as vehemently as he could without making the room spin.

"I can't...I can't..." he repeated hoarsely.

Harry sighed and looked at Mike.

"Ideas?"

Mike shrugged.

"We could check him into a hotel."

"Yeah, alright," she acquiesced. "There's a Four Seasons just off Baker Street with cheap rates."

"I can take him," Mike offered, "If you need to be up early."

"Could you? That'd be amazing."

Harry got up and put on her jacket. Before she left she pulled John into a one-armed hug and kissed him on the cheek, something she actually almost never did, which meant she must have been feeling particularly sorry for him.

"Bye, Little John."

It made him blush and swat at her half-heartedly.

"M'not seven, Harry..."

"In your condition, I'd say the alcohol takes off thirty years, give-or-take," She smiled teasingly. "Besides, it's not as though you're going to remember this tomorrow."

No arguments there.

/

They got a cab to the hotel, and John sat on a chair in the lobby while Mike paid for his room.

He collapsed on the bed and vaguely felt his shoes being removed. Mike set the room key on the bedside table and clapped him on the shoulder again before he left, saying 'take care' or something of a similar sentiment. John couldn't really hear him; the words sounded like they were coming from far away.

"Thanks Mike..." he muttered after a minute, but the door had already closed.


	14. The Road to Hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ended up WAY longer than I'd expected. However, I'm actually glad about that, because structurally I'm pretty excited by how it turned out. The tone, too, is unique because it shifts in a MAJOR way from beginning to end. I mean, woah. You'll have to trust me on this one.  
> (This is, in fact, my longest chapter yet! Yayyy! *confetti*)
> 
> I hope you like the little in-joke in the title; in addition to being indicative to the events of this specific chapter, it also ties back to a previous section...
> 
> CHAPTER WARNINGS: Dark themes, as per usual. A bit of cussing, but if you got through chapters 6, 7, and 13 you'll be just fine. If you are allergic to cliffhangers, I strongly suggest you stay far, far away. ;)
> 
> DISCLAIMER: The Sherlock characters will never ever ever be mine and I'm not making any money from writing fanfiction about them.  
> ...Why am I doing this again...?  
> Oh yeah; 'cause it's so. damn. FUN.

/

Sherlock woke up the next morning, possessing the acute and incontrovertible knowledge that he really, really had to pee.

His second thought, following said certainty, was that this was probably a good thing; it meant that he was no longer dangerously dehydrated.

His third thought - and this one arrived with a considerable dose of frustrated chagrin - was that despite the remarkable, saintly kindness she'd shown him the previous day, (or perhaps _because_ of it), there was absolutely _no_ way he wanted wake up Molly so she could help him walk to the bathroom. His legs were practically fine, thank you. He could do it himself. Probably.

In any case, he wasn't sure his vocal chords were quite yet in working order...

Still groggy, he shuffled - _slowly_ , because of the rib - towards the edge of the bed put his feet over the side, and very carefully, trying to use only his arms, pushed himself into a sitting position. (Again, the rib.) The duvet slid sideways off his shoulder, and he blinked a few times until he stopped seeing spots.

He actually felt rested. _Really_ , honestly rested. He couldn't recall the last time that had been the case. Then again, if it was morning, he must have been sleeping for at least twenty whole hours.

Christ, no wonder he had to pee.

As he woke up more fully, he realized he hadn't felt so clear-headed in weeks. It was _marvelous_. Practically decent.

He stood up. Hallway? No problem! He felt completely fine. He felt great; he felt -

 _BloodyFuckingFUCK_.

As it happened, his vocal chords were, in fact, entirely functional. It was a reality he abruptly discovered when every single physical injury he'd sustained decided to announce its presence simultaneously, and a grating wail of agony tore itself from his throat.

Fortunately, because the room was quite small, and the wall was only about two feet away, he was able to stumble forward and catch it to keep himself from collapsing onto the floor as his knees buckled under him.

It was possible, he conceded privately, that attempting to move around unaided in his current condition had been a not-so-well-thought-out idea.

He gritted his teeth, determined not to cry out again, and rode out the pain while he waited for his limbs to stop trembling.

Finally they did, and then he felt exhausted. Again.

Sherlock sighed wearily. He was almost frustrated enough to cry. However, due to the fact that if there was _anything_ that could make his present situation even _worse_ that it already was, it was tears, he ultimately rejected the idea.

 _Damnit_...

This actually wasn't going to work at all, was it?

/

Molly woke up, on that same morning, possessing the surprising and abrupt knowledge that someone was shouting her name.

Her second thought was of the worrying nature of the shout: hoarse, mildly distressed, and almost certainly urgent.

Her third thought - and this one arrived with a considerable deal of shock and dread - was that of course there was only _one_ someone in her immediate vicinity to whom said voice could possibly belong. And, additionally, there was a distinct likelihood that if a voice requesting her presence sounded urgent and distressed, then something urgent and distressing might, in fact, have happened to the particular someone it belonged to.

She jumped out of bed, instantly awake, adrenaline pounding, and rushed to the guest room, sincerely hoping that all the pains she'd gone to in the past day and a half to keep Sherlock alive weren't about to be rendered pointless.

Because, _really_ , that would just be unfair.

" _Molly_!"

"What-is-it-I'm-coming-what-happened-are-you-dying-again?"

She flung the door ajar, and it was a lucky thing that the hinges swung _away_ from him.

"Please don't be dying again...Oh."

Sherlock looked at her piteously from where he was slumped against the door frame. He had bed hair.

"...Oww."

Not even having to think about it by this point, Molly draped his arm over her shoulders and helped him lift himself away from the wall.

"Sherlock, _what_ do you think you're doing?"

"I woke up. I thought I'd get out of bed."

"Sherlock! You can't just decide to stand up by yourself after being beaten to a pulp and operated on and losing a third of your blood and laying bedridden for..." - she consulted the clock on the bedside table - "twenty-two hours."

"I admit that the thought didn't quite play out as intended. I may have had a slight lapse in judgement."

"Slight lapse my foot," she said crossly. "You gave me a fright! What were you even getting up for?"

"I required relief," he sniffed.

"What? What kind of relief?"

"I have to use the loo."

"Oh."

She considered this. "Well, good."

"I know it's good. I'm not going to immediately die of dehydration. Jolly wonderful."

Molly couldn't completely suppress a pleased grin.

"And I see you've recovered your trademarked sarcastic wit."

He glowered at her. "Yes, yes, good for me. But now if you don't _terribly_ mind..."

"Right. Sorry..."

The change was remarkable, Molly noted; after the first few steps, he was able to - at least partially - carry himself, and her role was closer to that of a crutch than a lifeline. She felt all the more appreciative, because during the night her lower back had become unbelievably sore from carrying him around so much the previous morning. Even so, he still winced with every step, and his face was worryingly pale.

"You should sleep more often," she told him. "You'll have more energy."

"I've consistently found _caffeine_ to have a comparable if not superior effect 93% percent of the time."

"And is that an exact figure?" she asked dryly.

"Not yet, but I'm intending to run an experiment."

When they reached the bathroom door he paused to rest against the wall, and Molly understood that this was as far as she was supposed to help him. It did worry her a bit, as she wasn't sure how long his energy would hold out, but she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"Okay," she said, "I'm going to make breakfast. When you need me just yell and I'll come get you."

He nodded, privately thinking that he would do no such thing.

/

After Sherlock had gone to sleep the previous day, Molly had called Bart's and told them she'd fallen rather ill and wouldn't be able to come in to work. She didn't feel bad about saying so, because it wasn't entirely removed from the truth. Admittedly, the phrase "falling ill" wasn't usually used to describe "I'm unfit to perform my job today because I just spent half the night in a high-stress situation single-handedly saving the life of a man who is supposed to already be dead." But that didn't mean it couldn't be done.

She was reminded, as she entered the kitchen, that she would need to pick up more bleach surface cleaner at some point during the coming week. After a six-hour-or-so nap, the _other_ thing she'd done the day before was go on a full-on cleaning spree; she'd re-scrubbed the kitchen, and then the bathroom floor, and then the bathtub, and then the toilet and the bathroom sink for good measure. And now her flat was once again satisfactorily hygienic and she was quite definitively _out_ of bleach.

She picked up her fully-charged phone from the kitchen counter and went back to her room to change out of her pajamas. She made her bed, called Bart's again to tell them she'd be out for another day, put her mobile on the beside table, and went back into the kitchen to see whether they had any eggs.

/

Sherlock got quite a shock when he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror above the sink. Other than the cuts and bruises, he hadn't shaved in almost four days. He had _stubble_.

He took five extra minutes to shave and splash cold water on his face, and was immensely relieved to see that his reflection was once again recognizable. Unfortunately, just because he _looked_ more like himself did not automatically make him _feel_ any more so. Being stripped of any remote semblance of dignity changed a person; there was simply no way around it. The devastating bruises on his skin were nothing compared to the ones that marred his ego.

He felt weak. He didn't like it. Objectively, he knew the prognosis was optimistic for a full physical recovery, but that hardly mattered; ethically, philosophically, _psychologically_ , he had given himself a reason to doubt his own intrinsic worth as a decent human being, and he doubted whether a wound like that would heal so easily as a broken rib or a punctured liver.

The stainless steel blades of the disposable razor glinted under the fluorescent bathroom light. Sherlock admired the sight for half a moment, twirling the contraption slowly with his fingers, and then he dropped it into the wicker bin next to the sink.

/

Molly was preparing an omelet. She'd never been a particularly good chef, but omelets were not a particularly difficult dish, and it happened to be one of the few staples her dad had insisted she perfect before she went off to uni. She had also considered doing bacon and toast, but she wasn't sure whether Sherlock would eat any of it, and she was also feeling surprisingly on-edge, which sort of killed her own appetite. So, on second thought, she elected to heat up a saucepan of chicken broth, just in case he still didn't feel up to downing solid foods. She was chopping green onions and trying to ignore the smell of bleach emanating from every flat surface when she heard a heavy thud in the hallway, followed by a pained yelp; she immediately dropped what she was doing.

" _Christ_ , Sherlock," she said in exasperation, as she rounded the corner and caught sight of him. "You're too stubborn for your own good, you know that?"

He had somehow managed to walk himself nearly to the living room, probably by leaning against the wall, but just before he reached the end of the hallway his legs had apparently given out, and he was currently attempting to continue towards the couch on his hands and knees. It might have been funny if it didn't look so painful. She offered him a hand, and between her help and the wall he was able to right himself. He limped to the couch and collapsed onto it, obviously spent.

"Are you okay?" Molly asked. His insistent attempts to do things himself, when he so obviously could not, were increasingly difficult and frustrating for her to witness. He reminded her so much of her father; it was the early stages all over again. Didn't he know he was only going to hurt himself if he went too far?

"I'm fine."

He wasn't. He was better, but better than actively dying was _not_ 'fine.'

"You shouldn't move around for a week, I'd say, at the very least. Don't want to reopen the wounds."

Sherlock knew she was probably right. And he knew what this meant. That she would have to continue caring for him, nonstop, until he was well enough to function independently. The thought was almost too much to bear. He was already so indebted to her...

He swallowed, feeling a bit sick.

"Molly...You shouldn't have to -"

"Yes, well, I don't exactly have a choice, do I?" she snapped. The words came out perhaps more sharply than she'd have liked, and she felt guilty even though it did seem to sober him up a bit.

"No..." he acquiesced quietly. "No, I suppose not."

"I know you don't like depending on anyone," she went on, "but you're just...just going to have to deal, okay? I _want_ to help you, Sherlock. So...humor me, please?"

She felt tears welling in the corners of her eyes. She just wanted him to _get it_. Sherlock was a genius in many respects, but "getting it," when it came to people and feelings, was something he often missed. This time, at least partially, she wondered whether she might finally have gotten through to him. He sighed in what sounded a bit like resignation.

"Yes. I know..."

He cleared his throat awkwardly.

"...Thank you."

After she smiled at him and went back to work, his face darkened, and he muttered into the back of the couch so she couldn't hear,

"I don't deserve it..."

If Molly picked up on that particular sentiment, she didn't show it.

She went to the kitchen cupboard and picked out two ceramic tea mugs.

"Feel like a cuppa? You really ought to drink something."

"Um...yes."

She was quite right about that. Plus, he was parched.

"- Please," he added quickly, figuring that if he couldn't possibly hope to repay her for saving his life multiple times, he could at the very least show Molly some courtesy by remembering his manners. (Which he had _not_ deleted, whatever Mycroft might have to say on the subject. He knew perfectly well that manners were useful. He simply preferred to observe them in other people, rather than bothering to apply them himself.)

Molly looked at him curiously for perhaps a second longer than strictly necessary, but didn't say anything.

"I'm cooking an omelet," she told him. "Do you want to try it? If you don't I'm heating up some chicken soup broth and you can have that."

"Could I have both?..." he wondered. "...please...?"

He was surprisingly hungry. Or maybe it wasn't so surprising, seeing as he couldn't actually remember his last proper meal.

"Of course," she answered, feeling vaguely amused by the stumbling - but sincere - attempts at proper etiquette.

"How are the stitches holding up?" she inquired tentatively, slightly wary of the answer.

Sherlock lifted the hem of his shirt to check. Some residual blood had continued to seep through the fabric, and in places he had to pull it away from his skin carefully, because it wanted to stick.

"Surprisingly well..." he admitted, inspecting the sutured incision. Though, he couldn't help looking up at her with raised eyebrows.

" _Dental floss_..."

By his tone, he clearly expected her to extrapolate on the matter. Molly shrugged apologetically.

"Yeah, well, I didn't have any PGC right on hand..."

"How _ever_ did you think of _this_ as a sufficient substitute?" he asked dryly.

"I dunno. Spur-of-the-moment, I guess. I think I've heard of people using it in emergencies."

Sherlock seemed to consider this. She could tell he wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea, but how exactly was he supposed to protest when it had clearly saved his life?

"Just...Please tell me it's not the mint-flavored variety."

Molly laughed in surprise.

"Er, no. I can assure you it's completely bland. And wax-free."

"What a relief..."

She glanced over at him and tutted disapprovingly.

"Well, don't _touch_ it."

He removed his hand, but kept staring at the gash distractedly.

"Idiot couldn't even stab me in the stomach properly..." he muttered, sounding rather annoyed.

Molly's smile faded slightly. Even his flippant sarcasm couldn't entirely disguise the morbidity of such a statement. Had he really meant to get himself stabbed in the stomach? To bleed out while his insides were eaten away by hydrochloric acid? That would have been a horrible way to go.

She really didn't want to think about it.

"I'm going to wash your jacket for you," she said, hoping to change the subject. "It smells terrible, by the way. What did you do to it?"

"I was wearing it when they tossed me in the rubbish bin."

 _That_ remark earned him a genuine double-take.

" _Oh_..." she said faintly.

"Luckily, most of the bags were closed," he added.

"Yes..."

Part of her was filled with morbid curiosity, but the rest of her, which felt mildly horrified, _really_ didn't want to ask.

Luckily at that moment the tea kettle began to whistle, sparing the two of them an especially prolonged awkward silence.

/

John's woke up that morning with a headache.

He didn't have any immediate _coherent_ thoughts, per se, but on _that_ part his mind was definitely, definitely quite clear.

After a time - he couldn't say how much, exactly, but some amount, to be sure - he began to recall the events of the previous night at the bar, and he almost - _almost_ \- preferred being alone with the crushing headache.

Almost, because _Christ_ , his head felt bloody _awful_...It was the worst hangover he'd had in ages, not that his present emotional state was doing much to help him cope.

It was lucky the curtains were fully closed, because even the small amount of light filtering in around the edges was making his brain throb in protest. He turned his head, discovering, in the process, that he'd drooled on the pillow during the night. The red lights on the digital clock next to the bed seared painfully into his retinas; it took a moment for them to sort themselves into recognizable numbers, which in turn took a moment to register in his mind as intelligible information: the time was half-past noon. He would be expected to be out of the hotel before long, so it unfortunately meant that he would have to get up at some point in the very near future.

Using what felt like a truly heroic strength of will, he sat up on the side of the bed, stood up, (then immediately sat back down, then after a minute stood up again), and stumbled into the bathroom (refusing to turn on the lights) in order to brush his teeth, because his mouth tasted sour and fuzzy and overall _extremely_ unpleasant. Then, of course, he remembered that he was at a hotel and didn't have his toothbrush. He briefly lamented walking all the way to the bathroom for nothing, until an overwhelming wave of nausea hit him and he promptly threw up into the toilet.

He did not appreciate the irony one bit.

John washed the taste out of his mouth with water, then splashed a bit onto his face for good measure, and tried not to think about how puffy and bloodshot his eyes must look. He decided he would go back to 221B, brush his teeth, take a cold shower, and then pass out again for hopefully the rest of the day. Or year.

/

Later, back in his own room, with damp hair and clean clothes and a mug of black coffee, he did feel marginally better. Marginally. The last eighteen hours were hazy and felt like little more than an unpleasant dream. He spotted his phone still connected to the wall outlet, long since finished charging. Sitting down on his bed and placing his coffee on the bedside table, he unplugged it and turned it on. There were three unchecked voice-mail messages. The most recent two were from Harry, but there was a third from a local mobile number that he didn't recognize. He pressed play, intending to immediately delete it if it sounded like a mistaken call.

_You have three unheard messages. First unheard message: Wednesday, July 27th, at 2:36 AM:_

Two-thirty in the morning? That seemed awfully sketchy. His thumb hovered over the 'end call' button.

What he heard next, however, made his blood freeze...

" _John, i-it's Molly. I -"_

Molly? Molly _Hooper_? _Jesus_ , what the hell was -

_*Beep*_

_Next unheard message: Thursday, July 28th, at_...

Wait, what -?

John moved the phone away from his ear and stared at it in horror, so he didn't hear the rest.

That was it? What the _hell_?! Molly sounded like she was in trouble. Had something happened? Was she in danger? Was she hurt?

And - and - _shit_! The message had been left yesterday morning, and he hadn't heard anything from her since. Any number of awful things could have occurred in the meantime. She could be dead in a ditch, or -

 _Wait. Calm down_.

He _hadn't_ heard anything. So, perhaps it had been a false alarm. Maybe the problem, whatever it was, had been solved, and that was why -

 _No. NO_!

It occurred to him just then that Molly had reportedly "phoned in sick" to work the previous day, and his anxiety skyrocketed as quickly as he'd just subdued it. It was far too much of a coincidence to be unrelated, surely?...

Mind racing, he found her number again in call history and redialed. It rang once, twice, three times, and he was painfully aware of each second that ticked past. Then, finally -

" _Hello! This is Molly Hooper -"_

"Molly!" he practically shouted. "What the _hell_ is going on? Are you -?"

" _As you can see if you get this message, I unfortunately can't come to my phone right now, but please do leave your name and number, and I'll try to call you back as soon as I-_ "

*click*

John hung up.

Oh, this was all kinds of 'Not Good.'

Without another thought, he ran down the four flights of stairs, grabbed his jacket from the coat-hook, and sprinted out the door to the curb, about to hail a cab and rush straight to her flat.

As he was waiting for one to appear, a tiny, hopeful, and somewhat more rational voice suggested that maybe, just _maybe_ , it was all a big mistake. Maybe she was fine, and her phone was off because she was at work. Until he was positive that the worst had happened, the voice insisted, he couldn't simply go barging into Molly's flat.

 _Fine_ , he thought, in order to appease it. _I'll check the hospital first_.

/

Around half-past noon, Molly headed to the local launderette on the next block with Sherlock's jacket. There wasn't an awful lot of blood, and most of it was on the inside, but if it didn't come out she'd decided to simply buy him a new one. She'd bought the one they had at the charity shop, anyways.

The stains didn't wash out. At least, not as well as she would have liked. She didn't really want to run it again and risk getting odd looks from the other customers, so she folded the garment and left and then dropped it into the nearest skip along with the rest of his bloody clothes. The charity shop was another ten minutes down the street, but she didn't have any urgent plans and Sherlock was asleep on her couch.

Molly hummed as she walked. Maybe she'd pick up more bleach on the way back...

It didn't cross her mind that her mobile phone was sitting unattended on the little side-table in her bedroom. And when it chirped to life at around quarter-after two, with a frantic call from John Watson, she wasn't there to answer.

/

A fifty-something woman with fleecy red hair looked up in mild surprise when John stormed through the heavy metal doors into the Bart's mortuary.

"Something you need there, sir?"

Molly Hooper was nowhere in sight. Once again, he didn't recognize the attendant in her place. How many employees _were_ there in this morgue?

To be fair, at least this one didn't look quite so mindlessly cheerful.

"Molly," he croaked, his voice still slightly raspy. "Where can I find Molly?"

"Molly...Hooper? Ahh...Sorry, love. Not here. She's out with the flu. That's two full days now, in fact. Poor girl..."

John's head went reeling in renewed panic - not a good combination with his still-painful hangover. He slumped a bit against the door frame.

"You all right, dearie? You're looking a bit pale."

 _I ought to_ , he thought. _All my blood's just drained out through my feet_.

And he dashed back out the door without a second glance.

/

"Actually..." he asked the cabbie a few minutes later, as they were on the way to Molly's street, "Could you stop somewhere first?"

"Where to?"

"221B Baker Street. I'll just be a minute."

True to his word, John was in and out the door in record time; up and down four flights of stairs in 65 seconds flat, and then he jumped back into the cab and slammed the door shut. Of course, he _had_ known exactly where to find what it was he'd gone in to retrieve. He repeated the cross-street to the driver and they took off.

He drummed his fingers nervously on his knees as they drove and didn't utter a single word. The loaded Browning was safely concealed under his jacket, but he could feel the cold metal pressing into his back the entire way across London.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, THAT doesn't bode well.
> 
> The title of the next chapter will be F.U.B.A.R. ...And that's all I'm gonna say about that.
> 
> Here's some random notes about this section...
> 
> So yes, the mystery thread from chapter 9 was dental floss. It's perfectly legit in an emergency as far as I could tell, (but I imagine you'd have to have a pretty specific kind). Kudos to Panserik, Nocturnias, and whoever else guessed correctly. :)
> 
> I had originally written the line "ethically, philosophically, psychologically" in reverse order, with "ethically" last. However, I decided to re-order the list because I felt that Sherlock would place more value in psychological rules/truths than ethical ones.
> 
> John's phone is a Nokia N97 Smartphone (got this from the sherlockology website). I don't know how these work, and I couldn't look up all the information I needed, so I used my own phone as reference. If anyone has corrections please do share.
> 
> Another logistical thing - I'm not entirely sure how many flights of stairs it is to the upstairs room at 221B. I guessed four, because there are two to reach the main flat.
> 
> The timeline started to get really tricky in this chapter because everything is spiraling towards a single meeting (AAAHHHHH!). Again - if you notice inconsistencies, please point them out to me! (I stayed up all night writing this chapter, so there's gotta be at least a few...)
> 
> Lastly, the gradually shifting tone was really tricky to nail. I just started typing, and everything was coming out in a slightly humorous style, which I loved, but I also knew I needed to end up in a much darker place to make way for the next chapter. (AAAHHHHHHHH!) I found myself tweaking small phrases or tone words here and there to create a hopefully smooth/coherent transition. (For instance, there was a small portion in the middle that I wrote a few weeks ago, and I discovered that Molly and Sherlock were at a different point in their relationship than how I'd imagined them to be, so I ended up altering their lines and their reactions to each other to reflect that.)


	15. Hit the Wall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one, as I've previously warned, is a doozy. I sincerely hope I've done it justice.
> 
> And yes, it's not called "FUBAR". (Though it might as well be.) I changed my mind: that will probably be the next section's title.
> 
> It was definitely one of the most difficult chapters to write. (Heh. I feel like I keep saying that...) First of all, it's just logistically really really challenging, since all (well, both) of the story-lines need to converge at a precise moment, and then things need to happen extremely specifically. Additionally, I went through one of those painful but obligatory 'writer's block' phases, where I suddenly realize that everything I write sounds cheesy and hackneyed and repetitive. Again, this fanfic has been - and continues to be - a huge (and overall very positive) learning experience.
> 
> CHAPTER WARNINGS: Just...Angst. So, so much. A bit of impassioned cussing.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: The crazy plot tangent is the only intellectual property I can lay claim to. I don't think the actual owners of the BBC Sherlock characters would write anything this messed up. WTH brain?

/

Molly set down her bags to fumble with the key to her flat. The deadbolt clicked, and when the door swung open she wrinkled her nose at the scent of disinfectant that wafted out to greet her. She'd forgotten how strong it was...

From the moment she stepped inside, she knew that something wasn't quite right.

"Sherlock?..."

Mostly it was the smell that tipped her off; underneath the truly ridiculous quantities of bleach she could detect the faint stench of vomit.

"I'm fine..." answered a weak voice from the vicinity of the sofa.

Seriously doubting the validity of that statement, she kicked the door closed with her foot and hurried over to the living room, setting her bags on the coffee table.

"Sherlock, are you alright?"

"I _said_...I'm fine..." The annoyance in his tone was somewhat diluted by the fact that he had to pause between syllables to catch his breath.

She turned around to tell him off, and almost stepped right into a plastic bowl filled with vomit that was sitting on the floor between the coffee table and the couch. It had had proper food in it when she'd left for the launderette; evidently he hadn't been able to keep it down. He was breathing shallowly, and there were traces of sick on the front of his shirt.

"I'll get you another t-shirt, shall I?" she said, stooping down and gingerly picking up the bowl.

His hairline and his collar near the base of his throat were beaded with sweat. She placed her hand onto his forehead - and found that it was cold. No fever. On the one hand, no fever was good; it meant no infection. But _cold_ was a different problem. Besides that, his skin was deathly pale again, and altogether with the cold and the shallow breathing and the general sense of lethargy she got the feeling that his blood pressure and his blood cell count were both still too low, and she wasn't sure what could be done about it.

"Sorry..." he mumbled, referring either to the vomit or to the way he'd snapped at her a moment ago.

"It's okay," she said to both.

She threw away the bowl and brought him a glass of ginger ale. He sat up and let her take off the soiled shirt and then leaned listlessly against the back of the couch, staring at the ceiling, while she re-checked the bandages on his torso. She pressed the glass into his hand.

"I'd drink the whole thing," she advised. "You need to increase your blood volume."

He nodded and didn't retort that he already knew that, even though that was probably the case.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

He blinked several times before answering.

"Indistinct."

Right...

"Woozy?" she translated hesitantly. "Are you going to faint?"

"No."

She bit the inside of her lip, hoping he wasn't just saying so. His eyes had a worryingly glazed-over look to them.

"I'll...I'll get you that clean shirt," she said, standing up. Sherlock nodded resignedly. He took a sip of the ginger ale and grimaced faintly at the carbonation.

Molly opened her mouth to add something reassuring, or insightful, or decisive, but the words simply weren't there.

/

It was so easy.

Part of John's mind - buried by now under the accumulating feelings of anxiety, and anticipation, and fury - half hoped he would have forgotten where she lived. But the cab pulled up onto Molly's street and her apartment building practically jumped out at him, plain as day.

So very miraculously simple.

That forgotten part of his mind half wished he wouldn't get past the door. But even as he walked up the steps one of the tenants strolled out - she held it open for him and smiled briefly. He nodded in thanks and smiled back.

It was something he was so good at - outward calm, inward rage.

That brute wasn't going to know what hit him.

/

Molly leaned sideways against the kitchen counter and pressed her face into her hands, wondering just how long she'd be able to keep it up; this 'playing doctor' business. Because that's all it was, really: playing a role that she didn't quite fit, and trying to pretend like she knew what she was doing when in reality she was entirely out of her depth.

She'd saved Sherlock's life in a pressing emergency, and that was all well and good. But he ought to be recovering in a proper hospital, in a clean white room with beeping monitors and nurses and IV drips. Instead he was sitting on the sofa in her living room in a borrowed t-shirt. Even though he'd _seemed_ fine before, now he was getting paler by the hour and he was too weak and he couldn't keep down food...

Would it pass? Was it something serious? Honestly, maybe it was all this bleach that had made him sick just now; the fumes were giving _her_ a headache, and they certainly couldn't be doing anything good for his stomach.

The simple truth was, Sherlock was injured - or ill - or _both_ \- and she didn't know _quite_ what was wrong with him.

She suspected it probably had to do with his blood count, but that wasn't good enough. Molly could analyze the components of healthy blood in her sleep, but that was in a sterile lab under a microscope where everything boiled down to neat bits of data that got entered into a computer, whereas this was a real life situation, and she didn't know the first thing about _practical_ administration because she was a _pathologist_ not an EMT and therefore, for all intents and purposes, entirely helpless.

_Dammit. Dammitdammitdammit._

If she only _knew_ what he needed...

But she didn't.

Actually - strike that - she _did_ know. Except knowing didn't even help, because she couldn't get one for him.

He needed a proper doctor.

Molly remembered the time when Sherlock had walked right up to her and looked her in the eye and said, "You do count." It seemed like another lifetime. She knew by now that it was true; she definitely counted to him. At the moment, though, it felt like she counted too much. She was the _only_ one that mattered, she had to shoulder all the responsibility, and she had no idea how that could possibly be enough to fix him.

It was too much pressure.

Molly was so absorbed in her own thoughts that she didn't even notice the knock on the door.

/

No one answered. John waited for what felt like ages, anxiety rising, debating whether or not he ought to knock again, or ring the bell, or just kick the whole contraption down and barge in. The latter seemed a bit rash, even at this point, so he rang the bell and waited, growing increasingly impatient.

/

"Molly."

She vaguely heard Sherlock saying her name.

" _Molly_."

He sounded worried. She hoped he wasn't going to throw up again. Or pass out. She didn't know what to do if he did. She didn't know what to do in general, at the moment.

The doorbell rang.

_Wait._

No.

_The doorbell_.

Molly's head snapped up. Her heart had stopped. She met Sherlock's eyes over the back of the couch, and he looked equally panicked. They were both frozen in place. Trapped.

" _I'm not at home_ ," she mouthed silently, praying that the mysterious caller would go away.

" _I'm not at home._

_I'm not at home..."_

/

Out of desperation more than anything, John tested the handle. It turned without protest. Odd...

/

Molly's eyes were suddenly drawn past Sherlock's shoulder. To her keys, which she'd tossed thoughtlessly onto the coffee table.

She'd never locked the door.

/

It was too easy. Far too easy.

John pushed on the door experimentally. The first thing that hit him, as it swung open, was the overpowering smell of bleach. It stung his nose and compounded the bizarre, gut-wrenching sense of _wrongness_ that pervaded the whole situation.

Automatically, his fingers twitched towards the gun behind his back. He'd brought it on a whim, intending only to use it as an extreme measure...but also, if he was being honest, because he'd grown so used to its presence while in the military and while solving crimes with Sherlock that it just felt wrong not to have it.  
That it slid easily into his hand was a base protective reflex; one he didn't even have to think about.

He scanned the flat; there was a kitchen to the left, and straight across from the front door a carpeted hallway leading presumably to the bath and bedrooms. He saw Molly immediately, caught like a deer in the headlights between the counter and a small kitchen table.

" _John_ \- What -?..."

John didn't know what he'd expected to find, but somehow everything he was seeing seemed _off_ , like he was trying to look at the scene through a warped sheet of glass. He wasn't sure why, or how, but right then he _knew_ , instinctively, that coming here had been a mistake.

Not knowing what else to do, his brain reverted to the 'script'; the way he'd imagined the confrontation to play out. Even though it no longer quite seemed to fit...

"Where is he?" he blurted out, harsher than he'd meant to sound.

The question obviously meant _something_ to her. Molly's face turned pale. Her eyes shifted back and forth rapidly as she began to stammer in shock.

"Wh- I- I don't-"

Suddenly she looked down at his hand and her breath caught.

" _John, i-is that_ \- ?"

She took a step back, staring with horror at the gun he'd not even noticed he was holding.

He looked at Molly, unexpectedly taken aback. The urgent, focused anger which had driven him to her doorstep had mysteriously dissipated.

"I..."

_I'm here to rescue you._

_I'm here to pound some sense into whoever's been hurting you._

At the look on her face, neither seemed like a particularly stellar option.

"You called me," he said finally, hating how defensive the words sounded. "You remember, surely? Two nights ago. Something was wrong. And...You haven't been at work. You didn't answer your phone."

He heard the message play once again in his head - remembered the unmistakable note of frantic fear in her voice. His grip on the gun tightened.

"I thought -...I had to make sure that you..."

Then, his eyes swept over the couch in the living room.

/

Of all the people who could have walked through her door at that moment, John Watson was possibly the worst.

Okay, in fairness, perhaps an armed police squad would have been worse, but at the moment she'd have taken the entire precinct in a heartbeat.

In the bewildering exchange that followed, her brain tried desperately to keep up with everything that was going on.

_He knows about Sherlock!_

How _does he know about Sherlock?_

_Oh, God - he has a_ gun _-_

_He got the phone message?_

_He_ doesn't _know about Sherlock -_

_He still thinks there's someone else -_

She followed his gaze to the couch. To the person sitting on the couch.

_Oh, no._

/

John's face went stark white. His right knee buckled, and he fell back against the door with a thud.

" _YOU._ "

Everything stopped. The Earth abruptly ceased to rotate. The expansion of the universe ground to a halt.

The gun dropped from John's shaking hand, clattering harmlessly to the floor.

/

Sherlock Holmes was sitting on Molly Hooper's sofa.

_Dead_ Sherlock Holmes. The Sherlock Holmes who'd probably - no, _definitely_ \- saved his life, though he'd never told him so. The Sherlock Holmes he'd chased around London during the most bizarre, spectacular year and a half he'd ever experienced. The Sherlock Holmes who now haunted his thoughts on a daily basis. The Sherlock Holmes who had committed suicide over a month ago by jumping off the roof of Saint Bartholomew's Hospital while he'd had to stand and _watch_.

_That_ Sherlock Holmes.

" _Sherlock_?" he uttered, more mouthing the word than actually emitting any audible sound.

The - _apparition_? - didn't answer him. He looked as stunned and frightened as John felt.

He honestly did look like a ghost; he was pale enough, at least.

Maybe...he _was_ a ghost?

It seemed, admittedly, a bit odd that a ghost - especially one resembling Sherlock - would be dressed in pajama bottoms and an over-stretched t-shirt. But then again, what would _he_ know about incorporeal fashion?

John remembered Molly. Could she see him too? Perhaps he'd finally gone mad?…He turned his head to check.

No.

No, he hadn't. _She knew_. She looked guilty. And, as he watched, she threw _not-a-ghost_ Sherlock a quick glance - half alarmed, half apologetic.

"John, um...He's-"

"Alive?..." he choked, sounding a bit hysterical. "Sherlock's...alive?"

He couldn't even bring himself to address the man directly. Because that would be acknowledging something impossible...something he hadn't dared to hope for, because it was too painful...

"It's a bit of a long story..." Molly said weakly.

"But - you - you..."

John suddenly remembered the reason he'd come to her flat in the first place. Where was the attacker? The dangerous and possessive boyfriend? Had he really so thoroughly deluded himself that he'd invented a threat that didn't even exist? But, if that was so, why had Molly nearly jumped out of her skin that day in the morgue, or practically burst into tears in the Tesco's car park? If all that had been an act, which he highly doubted, it was an awfully cruel one.

And _Sherlock_?

The more he thought about it, the less it made sense.

"Molly?...What's going on?"

/

Molly's heart clenched painfully. The gears in her mind spun at an alarming pace.

This was her _chance_. Maybe, if she could convince John that the _only_ thing she'd been hiding from him was that Sherlock was alive, then a true disaster could be averted, before things spiraled out of control...Maybe, _maybe_...

"John..." she said shakily. "I've been lying to you."

A heavy silence fell in the room. She plowed ahead, even as he gaped at her in shock.

"N-no one hurt me," she said. The words came reluctantly; each one ripped away a piece of her heart as she voiced it. "It was meant to be a cover-up. I'm so sorry. I - I shouldn't have misled you. It was just...just..."

She swallowed, lapsing into silence. The story rang false in her own ears, and she knew by the look on his face that he didn't buy a syllable of it.

"Molly - _don_ ' _t_. I _know_ what I saw. It wasn't guilt. You were terrified!"

He kept looking at her in confusion, obviously hoping in vain for a glimmer of rhyme or reason to appear, a magic answer that would somehow make everything make sense. Molly tried to force herself to argue again, to prove him wrong, to _help_ , but she couldn't seem to get her jaw to work. She was no great actress; not now, when the stakes were so high.

And if he could figure out that much, she realized, then there was only one conclusion to be drawn. In the silence before the other shoe dropped, she held her breath and prayed futilely that he would reach a different resolution.

But it didn't work like that. For once, and at the worst possible time for it to do so, logic prevailed. John's shallow exhalation resounded like a death knell.

" _No_..."

Molly watched helplessly as two and two came together behind his eyes. At first he looked shocked, his expression turning to dull horror. But then something in him seemed to snap; he smiled - he actually _smiled_ , chuckling weakly as if it was some sort of joke. It was blood-chilling to watch. She could literally see his world collapsing.

"' _It's complicated_ '..."

With a jolt, Molly remembered her words to him in the car park.

"Oh, that's bloody _rich_. I see it now..." He turned to Sherlock.

"You," he said softly, staring at him. "It was _you_?!"

Molly had only a split-second's warning; she saw his nostrils flare and his fingers twitch, and then -

" _No_!"

She grabbed his arm as he lunged forward, trying to stop him.

"John, stop, please!"

He shoved her away. It barely registered in his mind what he was doing; John couldn't see straight anymore - blinded as he was by rage, blinking back angry tears.

"You _BASTARD_!"

Molly could only watch in terror as he stormed over to the couch, where Sherlock was cowering away from him with shock and panic in his widened eyes. John seized the collar of his shirt, shaking him roughly.

"What the _HELL_ have you done?!" he demanded hoarsely; the question seemed to encompass everything that had happened over the past month. Not waiting for an answer, he shoved Sherlock backwards into the couch cushions and began punching him in brutal outrage.

Molly let out a strangled yelp.

"Please - please don't - h-he has a broken rib!"

"Yeah?" John's voice sounded equally anguished. "Then I'll break all the rest of 'em for you - don't think for a second I won't!"

The blows landed over and over, and suddenly there was blood too, blossoming onto Sherlock's newly patched-up face and quickly splattering John's knuckles, but he couldn't stop - his fists kept pounding Sherlock's chest and face in a deranged frenzy, even as tears streamed down his cheeks.

" _Stop it_! _STOP IT_!" Molly was screaming at him, but her pleas fell on deaf ears.

She ran to the couch, tearing at John's jacket, and then - when that didn't work - she used all her weight to shove him sideways, so that he lost his balance, stumbling and crashing onto the carpet. Molly landed next to him on her knees. She scrambled backwards to collapse against the coffee table, and clamped both hands over her mouth to stifle her sobs as her body shook uncontrollably.

The inferno behind John's violent rage seemed to have gone out. For a while he just lay on the floor, seething and shuddering and broken, completely unable to come to terms with his best friend's sudden resurrection and immediate cruel betrayal. After a moment he pushed himself shakily onto his hands and knees. Then he dug his fingers into his scalp, and fell apart, sobbing wretchedly.

Molly glanced up at Sherlock, and her heart stopped. He wasn't moving.

She couldn't see from her vantage point whether it was from the shock of John's devastating reaction, or because he'd been beaten senseless.

(Then again, was there really much of a difference?)

Finding herself, she leaped shakily to her feet and rushed to his side, nearly crying out with relief when she saw he was still conscious - though, only just.

His eyes were squeezed shut, and he was breathing raggedly in shallow, sharp gasps. He flinched when she put a hand to his cheek. As if he expected to be struck again.

"Sherlock?"

His eyes blinked and fluttered open, and she suddenly realized that he was trying desperately not to cry. His gaze darted around the room, looking anywhere but her, anywhere but John, as tears began leaking out in a steady stream. His chest contracted - he let out a strangled sob, and immediately winced as his abused ribs protested.

But the single sob was like a fissure in the walls of a floodgate inside his chest, and once it started he could do nothing to hold it back - he couldn't stop, and he choked and began to weep in earnest, because of the pain, and because of John, and because of Molly, and because of his whole ruined life and the self-loathing that could never, ever leave - _not now - not anymore_.

Nearby, John had finally managed to stumble to his feet. He seemed to be trapped in a nightmarish daze. He looked at Molly crying, and at Sherlock sobbing and covered in blood, and down at his own knuckles, also covered in blood, and he backed away wordlessly, trying to escape. His back eventually hit the bookcase, whereupon he sank to the floor once again and stared without seeing at the opposite wall.

Molly looked at John, empty, and at Sherlock, broken, and for a long moment - the longest in her whole life, perhaps - she could feel nothing but despair.

.

.

.

/

"You know what?"

Molly started when she heard John's voice cut jarringly through the suspended air. He feigned an almost casual tone, but the words were quavering with subdued emotion.

"I think Sherlock _is_ dead."

His red-rimmed eyes drifted towards the couch, and he stared at Sherlock with something approaching hatred.

"Because I sure as _hell_ don't know who _you_ are."

Sherlock flinched back as though the words were a physical blow. He wouldn't - or couldn't - look at John; instead he shrank further into the couch as though he wanted nothing more than to disappear entirely.

Slowly, painfully, Molly felt a shift taking place in the back of her mind. The cogs clicked reluctantly into place, and then, all at once, the world began to speed up again, dragging her back into the present moment.

Everything had gone wrong. It was just a huge misunderstanding, and the only thing that mattered to her was to _fix it_.

"W-wait!"

Her tongue felt sluggish in her mouth as it tried to catch up to her racing thoughts.

"You don't understand - Please just listen and we can-"

" _Explain_?" John spat. She gaped at him. The incredulity in his tone brought her up short.

"You think I want an explanation?" he went on, "I want nothing to do with this. _This_ man" - he pointed at Sherlock - "has already ruined my life once, and if he thinks he can just waltz back to the land of the living so he can do it again - then - then he can _fuck off_."

He was seething.

"I don't know why he's still here, or what he's done. All I know is that he _lied_ to me - to his friends - to _everyone_ \- and I've been going through hell for weeks because he let me think he was _dead_..." John suddenly rounded on Molly, and she shrank back. But his eyes were filled only with helpless bewilderment.

"And _you_ _knew_ ," he said. " _You_ helped him. And he _hurt_ you! What - did you threaten to tell me he was alive?"

She shook her head frantically.

"John - no - _no_! It wasn't like that at all! I wanted to, of course I did - and _so_ did Sherlock - but it was -"

" _No._ " John cut her off again. "No! I don't care. I don't want to hear it. I...ahh-"

His voice cracked. He gritted his teeth and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. He took a slow, controlled breath. Then another. Molly stood next to the coffee table and watched him trying not to cry again and didn't say anything at all. A minute passed during which she could do nothing but count heartbeats.

" _Oh, God_..."

she heard him mutter after a while, in the most hopeless-sounding voice she had ever heard from him.

"Molly, I'm so sorry," he said quietly. His hands dropped to his sides, and he glanced at her with bloodshot eyes and shook his head.

"I'm so sorry I couldn't help," he said. For the briefest instant his eyes flicked towards Sherlock, but he quickly caught himself, and his expression turned to stone.

"I'm done."

Without looking back, he strode briskly out the door.

/

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gee, that went WELL.
> 
> (Can you sense the sarcasm?...)
> 
> Oh, wow. The emotions were soooo hard to pin down. It was a constant juggling act, from moment to moment, balancing aggression and confusion and outrage...  
> But finally things have come to a head! And now I just need to resolve this mess...


End file.
